The girl really loved her baseball

Patsy Ruth Danner Weeks loved baseball.

The Texas Panhandle native dated one of the Clovis Pioneers briefly in the early 1950s, went to many of the team's games, got them to autograph baseballs for her, collected team photos.

Baseball is how she met her husband.

Jim Weeks happened to be around a group that included Patsy and her friends and he heard her chatting up the game.

"My dad couldn't believe this girl was talking so much about baseball," Shelley Carmichael was told.

Jim played baseball in the Air Force. They were married in 1954.

Together, they lived in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Ohio, West Virginia, even Australia for awhile.

Everywhere they went, those autographed baseballs she collected from the Clovis Pioneers went with her.

Carmichael said her mom sometimes visited her childhood hometowns of Bovina, Farwell and Muleshoe - even received a nice writeup in the Bovina Blade newspaper after a class reunion — and always kept close watch on her beloved Pioneers baseballs.

She still had them when she died in Fort Myers, Florida, in 2007 at age 80.

Carmichael was going through her mother's things a few weeks ago and it occurred to her that others may have shared her mother's passion for baseball and Clovis' professional team that existed from the 1930s through the 1950s.

She packed up all six baseballs, plus six team photos, and sent them to The Eastern New Mexico News with a request: Find them a good home.

"I just got to thinking they are part of Clovis' history," Carmichael said.

"I was thinking maybe they would mean something to somebody's granddaddy or great-granddaddy.

"They don't have any financial value, but there might be some emotional sentiment for someone, like there was for my mom."

The balls contain autographs from about six dozen players, most of whom were never famous beyond Bell Park.

Carroll "Red" Dial won 80 games in three seasons for the Pioneers (1952 to 1954) but never made the Major Leagues.

Frank Benites made a career out of playing for and managing minor league teams in the West Texas-New Mexico League. The 165-pound catcher batted .325 and hit 50 home runs for Clovis in 1952-53.

Ray "Power Bauer" was another slugger that Weeks almost certainly enjoyed watching play. He hit .364 one season and collected thousands of dollars — one at a time — from fans who gave him cash rewards through the fence after each home run from 1946 to 1951.

The odds are pretty good that at least one of those dollar bills came from super fan Patsy Weeks.

There is no way to know exactly when she collected the autographs on the baseballs, but her team photos are from 1946 to the early 1950s.

"Rather than keep them in a box for another 40 years or so, I thought somebody might want them," Carmichael said. "If they meant that much to Mom that she carted them around for 60 years, they might mean something to someone else."

If you're interested in displaying an autographed Clovis Pioneers baseball, contact Editor David Stevens: [email protected]