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ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
BASEBALL IN PENNSYLVANIA

1. Student's Name
2. Subject's Name

a. date and place of
b. Present address

Pennsylva nia

c. Present Occupation
4.

Date of Interview

5. General Comments:

Troy Magee began· playing baseball at eight- years of age. He
played all through highschool and played some college baseball. In this
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SLIPPERY ROCK UNIVERSITY

AN ORAL REPORT ON
BASEBALL IN PENNSYLVANIA
SUBMITTED TO THE HISTORY DEPARTMENT

DR. DIXON

BY
DOUG MACGREGOR

SLIPPERY ROCK, PENNSYLVANIA
NOVEMBER, 1994

My interview with Troy Magee was conducted on November 17,
1994.

Troy Magee grew up in Oil City, Pennsylvania which is

south of Erie.

Magee is very knowledgeable about baseball and

still plays when he has a chance.

Doug MacGregor: Where and when did you play baseball?
Troy Magee: Where?

I started when I was eight playing in leagues

at home, Union city Pennsylvania, continued from then on all
through high school and in my first semester of college I tried
out for Division one at Mississippi State and then didn't make
the team, so in the spring, I transferred to Grove City where
I played for a semester.

Ever since, now, I'm in softball,

but, started with baseball for eight 'til I was eighteen.

Played

every summer, every season.
MacGregor: Did you feel pressured to play by family or friends?
Magee: No, there was no pressure for me to play.

I put any

pressure that I got about playing was put on by myself.

Because

I wanted to be the best, always on a winning team, that's just
it.

Enjoyed it so much that I always wanted to play, I didn't

need to be pressured into baseball.
MacGregor: Was it difficult to make the team or a starting
position?
Magee: I didn't experience any difficulty making a team or
gaining a starting position I wanted, until, my freshman year
in high school, when I went to the varsity competition and
originally wanted to play catcher, because I used to play catcher
all through little league, but I didn't have the size that I

needed, so, that was the first time I ever got rejected for
a position, and then that's when I moved from catching to the
infield, to second base, into outfield.

I got my share of

playing time as a freshman, enough to gain a varsity letter,
but I was sharing duties at second base with other team members
and in the outfield.
MacGregor: What do you remember most from playing baseball?
Magee: My most memorable, would probably have to be when I was
ten, in little league, my little league baseball coach was blind.
And he was an extraordinary coach.

He was phenomenal We had

a complex, a baseball complex in my town, there was three fields
and it was all enclosed with a fence, and you could drop this
guy off at the front gate and he could go from there anywhere
onto any of the three fields he wanted to go, without any help.
He knew exactly where everything was.

He used to hit us infield

practice, that's when I was catching, and I'd be catching and
I'd have to hand the ball to him and he'd hold up the ball in
one hand, over top of the ball, then swing with the bat and
hit the ball out of his hand to anywhere, any position, you
know when you hit infield, you started third usually and go
around the infield and then you go the outfield and he'd do
it in exact order.

He could tell if there was an error made,

just basically he could tell if there was error made if I didn't
have the ball back within a certain amount of time, there was
a bad throw or the ball got through. And if he was hitting fly
balls to the outfield he knew if they were caught or if they
were dropped, he could listen and tell the outfielder, "You

dropped that one" or this and that.

And probably one of the

most extraordinary things he could do was, he stood in by the
batter's box, and someone was doing pitching practice and I'd
be catching and he could tell whether the pitch was a ball or
strike just by the sound of where you caught the ball.

If you

had to stretch up and reach for a high pitch, you know he'd
say that's high and obviously he could tell if it's low because
sometimes it would hit the dirt, but even if it wouldn't if
you had to turn your glove the other way, he could tell by the
sound of the ball hitting in the glove where it was.

And he

probably had the biggest impact on my life for baseball.
he is

And

just an extraordinary man

MacGregor: So, he was a good coach even though he was blind?
Magee: Yeah.

I played for him for three years, ten, eleven

and twelve, and every year we were in first place.

He always

had the best players, but he knew how to handle the players,
and he was just extraordinary, everybody wanted to play for
him, because he was so extraordinary, and he was an excellent
coach.

He knew who to play where, he knew how to split up

playing time to keep everybody happy and he just knew what
everybody could do.

I'm sure he had allot of help knowing who

to pick from the minor league up to the little league, but once
he had you, he knew where you should play and what level you
should be able to play at.

He just made everybody excel.

MacGregor: Do you feel that baseball is the primary sport in
your area, and if not what sport do you feel is?
Magee: Yeah, I'd have to say baseball is my primary sport.

It's definitely the sport I put most of my time into.

I have

to say it's not the most demanding, but it's the one I enjoy
the most.

Of course I was wrestling when I was in third grade

and I wrestled all through high school, and that's a demanding
sport, but as far as pure enjoyment, in that aspect, baseball
has probably had the biggest impact on my life, because it
controlled all my summers all through high school.

I did nothing

but play baseball when I was growing up, just couldn't get enough
of it.

Even into when I got out of baseball, I'd be playing

softball in the summers, playing in three different leagues,
just because I couldn't get enough of the activity.

Softball

isn't baseball of course, but when you don't have baseball,
you want to do something and that's the closest thing I could
get.

So, definitely, it's a major sport in my area.

MacGregor: And do you think that was the main sport in your
area, did everyone enjoy that sport, or was there more football
fans than baseball fans?
Magee: I'd have to say when I was younger, baseball was real
big because we always had a good All-Star team, like the year
I was ten, we sent our team to the state tournament.
winning the region and stuff.

It kept

But, into high school, baseball

became sort of a less important sport for spectators, unless
of course your parents were going to come but there's not as
many players on the baseball team as there is on a football
team or it's not as high a spectator sport as wrestling was
in my high school.

But, the die-hard people

were always there.

You could see the same people at the games all the time and

they were, it was just like clockwork, you knew they were going
to be there.

A home or away game, they were just going to be

there.
MacGregor: What baseball players did you admire as you were
growing up, or who do you admire today?
Magee: Some of the most influential players when I was growing
up would of been the Pirates, the teams in seventy-six, seventyeight when they were real big, with Willie Stargell and Dave
Parker, Kent Tekulvie, players like that stick out in my mind
just because I became so familiar with them because they were
the team, of course I live only two hours from Pittsburgh, so
of course I grew up as a Pirates fan.

But, I'd say the players

now that I respect are the players who seem to play just for
the love of the game, but the one that seems to stick out in
my mind is obviously Nolan Ryan.

He didn't want to quit.

body just couldn't handle it anymore.

His

He didn't give in 'til

he was physically unable to give in, and that just proves a
love for the game that is a kind of love I had for the game
but didn't have the ability to accomplish that.

And the Jay

Bell's in the league who are probably underpaid for their
service, but he really doesn't care, he likes to play so much
that he's not really concerned with all the money.

Obviously

there are players out there who are probably well overpaid,
sure they're good but, how good is a person, is a person ever
worth six million dollars because he can play baseball?

I don't

see it as far as an athlete goes but I guess when you look at
the whole scheme, baseball is a business.

If you got a player

like a Barry Bonds who's making all that money, obviously he
is generating enough revenue for a team that he's worth it.
It's no different than paying a top executive in a corporation
that kind of money for providing
they're doing.

a service, and that's what

But it just seems that it takes away from the

fans point of view that he's just out there for the money.
And obviously he's out there because he loves the game, because
he's put in the time and the effort to make it to the big
leagues.

But all that money sort of clouds everyone's perception

of why he's there.
MacGregor: Do you think that baseball influenced your life in
any way?
Magee: Definitely it had an influence in my life.
me a great deal about life.

It taught

And you work as a team, I mean,

the biggest lesson was probably when I was in minor league
because I was probably one of the better players on the team,
but I had a coach who played everybody, no matter what.

Everyone

got at least two innings of play and everyone had their turn
on the bench and that taught me a big lesson, that you got to
work together, it's not an individualized game, it's a team
game.

And being a catcher also taught me a great deal about

baseball, because everyone, or I shouldn't say everyone, or
people who see baseball automatically think the pitcher is always
in control of the game.

Well that's the furthest thing, the

person in control on that field, when your on defense, when
your in the field is the catcher.

He's got the biggest job

because he's got to keep everyone together, you got to know

what's going on every play, you get the ball every play, just
like the pitcher, and if your pitcher's getting riled, you're
the one who's got to know about it and be able to call time
out and talk to your pitcher.

You got to keep his head in the

game, so the whole time, you got to keep levelheaded, if
something goes against you, you got to keep your cool, because
there is not really anybody out there to help you regain
yourself.

You're sort of secluded from everybody being behind

the plate, and you got to be able to control everybody and the
pitcher at the same time.
MacGregor: Did anyone from your area make it beyond high school
or college in baseball?
Magee: No one in my area did any better than play college ball.
I played some college ball.

I played a semester at Grove City.

There was a player who was a pitcher for us, who graduated two
years in front of me who came to Slippery Rock and played at
Slippery Rock for a couple of years anyway.
know no one ever really made it big.

And as far as I

There were players that

I thought probably could of made it, but for some reason or
other, they didn't want to or they didn't want to go to college,
they didn't want to put in the time here.

Some of the best

athletes, best baseball athletes I know, just never had any
drive to do anything else.

They lived for the baseball game

and as far as everything else, they didn't care about everything
else, and they were wasted athletes.

I've seen a lot of those.

I grew up with a lot of kids who were

probably wasted athletes

just because they didn't really care.

All they wanted to do

was play baseball, where as I wanted to play baseball, but I
wanted to play so bad that I was willing to do, go that extra
step to try to make it and I didn't And that sort of bothers
me, but at least I gave it the effort.
MacGregor: Was winning the most important thing or was playing
satisfaction enough?
Magee: I'd have to say when I first started playing, it was
just playing.

But from minor league to little league to pony

league I was never on a losing team, so it became important
to me to be a winner.

But it wasn't the most important thing.

I didn't really know how to lose until I got into high school
and it was a reality check for me.

It made me realize that

where as I wasn't always going to be on a winning team, and
as much as it bothers you, you still go out there and do it
every day

to play just because you love the game.

So I'd have

to say that winning probably wasn't the most important thing
but it was just being able to play, but it was a close second.

MacGregor: Were you ever pressured to win or did your coaches
just want you to play the best that you could or did they just
want to win?
Magee: I'll go right up the line.

Minor league, it wasn't about

winning, it was about everyone getting their chance to play
and when he approached us with the everyone is going to play
at least two innings, I sort of had doubts that we were going
to win, because I knew that we had players on our team that
just weren't good.

You know eight-year olds and nine-year olds

but at

that time, I knew there were people who

good as me or other players on the team.

weren't as

I'd say that coach

made just playing, it didn't matter win or lose, just playing.
But as you go up winning becomes more important to coaches.
And I guess when I was a junior in high school it became evident
to me that the baseball coach was there to win, and he really
didn't care about anything else.

When I was a sophomore, we

had an all conference team and we entered the state tournament,
and then lost.

We came back the next season and the coach put

all this pressure on us, the junior and senior class, who had
played with the seniors the year before, my sophomore year,
and were very successful But the coach expected us to perform
to the standards from the year before and we just didn't have
the all around talent and he made it evident that he didn't
really want to be there unless he was winning.

And we had a

lot of controversy that year with him walking out.

He was a

bigger kid about winning than any of the players on the team.
He just, when things started to go bad, he'd bail out on us.
And it sort of hurt because you know you think that a coach
is supposed to be there through it all, but he wouldn't be.
It hurt us but at the same time it made those of that were older
on the team more educated into that area, we had to take control.
We either had to run the practice because he'd get mad at us
and walk off or wouldn't show up, a couple of days he did that
to us, and we'd have to take control.
we wanted to play.

And we did that because

We weren't winning, but we were out there

practicing everyday, doing what we had to do, but we couldn't

put the season together.

So, there was pressure in my later

years in high school from the coach just to win.

He didn't

really care about just competing, he wasn't a baseball player
ever, he didn't know that much about the game.

I knew more

about the game as a freshman, sophomore, junior, senior than
he did, and

that was evident.

We had an assistant coach who

was incredible my sophomore year who was actually the sole reason
we got the state tournament like we did.

But high school was

a definite pressure to win.
MacGregor: Was baseball important in your community and did
they show their support by attending high school and other minor
league programs?
Magee: Baseball was important.

It was one of the few things

that the majority of kids in my area participated in in summers.
We had an incredible minor league and little league and pony
league programs with a great deal of support from the community.
They took care of our fields, they ran the concession stands,
they did this and that, and they supported us.

Every Memorial

Day, Every team in the little league and pony league had a game,
every team.

And you could go to the little league field and

it was just mobbed.

There were people everywhere, kids

everywhere and it's an incredible thing, but then all of a sudden
when you make that jump from pony league to high school, the
support wasn't there.

And I'm sure that has a lot to do with

working parents and this and that and the other thing, but it
all seems that it all fell off because we have so much success
in the younger kids' programs and these teams are all incredible.

But for some reason when they reach the high school level, they
either don't like the coach or they just don't want to play
anymore.

I don't know if it's a burnout, I suppose it's mostly

coaching because when you have kids who are competing in minor
leagues through pony leagues who are always winning and having
these successful all-star teams at the end of the season, you
think that when you turn those players over into high school
players that the tradition will continue you'll have winning
seasons.

Maybe not great seasons, but it didn't happen and

I think people lost interest because they didn't want to be
losers anymore.

The good players just didn't want to put in

the time if they weren't going to win.

So, I probably have

to blame a lot of the parents for the way our program was because
I was always taught that if you want to do something, no matter
what, you do it.

Sure I had coaches I didn't like, but they

never deterred me from doing something I wanted to do, and I
don't think it should.

People who don't play a sport because

of a coach are neglecting themselves from something they like
to do, and I wouldn't ever want, I'm glad it didn't ever happen
to me and I've seen it happen to players who should of played
high school ball that didn't for this and that reason and it's
just there's no reason good enough if you want to play, you'll
play.
MacGregor: From an earlier question, I asked you what you
remember most from baseball, and you listed your blind baseball
coach.

Do you have any other memories whether disappointing

or whether from actual playing time?

Magee: Yeah, I'd have to say one of the most disappointing
moments of my baseball career was, aside not making the baseball
team at Mississippi State, would be when I was a sophomore when
our team made it to the state playoffs, I mentioned earlier,
and our seniors on the team of course, were the leaders who
got us there.

They were the pitching staff and we got into

early June, late May, early June, when we played our first game
of the state playoffs it seemed as though all of the seniors
were tired of playing.

They wanted to graduated and get out

of high school, and the desire wasn't there.

It disappointed

me, for one reason, because I was there and I wanted to win
and I probably performed at one of my best levels at that time.
I was doing everything I could and it seemed that all our seniors
who had got us there, gave up on us.

And that was just a shock

to me, that they didn't want it as bad as I wanted it as a
sophomore and they were seniors.
and they didn't want it.

This was their last hurrah

I have to say another disappointing

moment is probably, I played at Grove City and than the following
Fall I transferred into Slippery Rock, and I probably should
have tried out for the team, but I gave it up and I may have
given it up too soon.

And that's always going to be with me

because I blew the chance I had when I came to Slippery Rock
by not trying out as soon as I came and then just kept putting
it off and then never got around to it finally.

And that sort

of bothers me.
MacGregor: As you mentioned before, you wrestled in high school,
did you have a priority of wrestling or baseball over one

another?
Magee: I have to say baseball was my number one priority when
it came to high school sports.

We weren't as successful in

baseball as I was in wrestling.

I mean I was as personally

as successful in baseball as I was in wrestling, but wrestling
is an individual sport.

I mean it's an individual against an

individual competing for a team, but when your on the mat it's
one on one.

When your on a baseball team, there's eight other

guys on the field that you have to work together with at the
same time.

And even though we weren't as successful in baseball,

I still have to say it took priority.

Because wrestling season

started some time in November and I'd be wrestling right up
to the time baseball season started.

They'd actually have

started baseball practice, they were practicing a week

before

I could even start practicing because I'd still be wrestling,
because I'd go to sections and then districts.

And I'd be

wrestling extra weeks past the season, and I'd get into districts
and I'd feel like the whole week of practice for districts,
the baseball team's practicing.

And we split the gym in half

and it sort of pulled me in half, half of me wanted to be with
the baseball team and half wanted to be with the wrestling team,
so I have to say just because of that fact, that obviously
baseball was more important.

I couldn't once baseball started

half of me went with baseball, I wasn't totally committed to
wrestling anymore by that time.

So, baseball was probably the

one standout.
MacGregor: So, did that week, you were distracted by that, did

that effect your performance in wrestling at all?
Magee: Um, I like to think it did.
I actually got on the mat.

I don't think it did once

I mean I still think I performed

to the best of my ability once I got on the mat finally at
districts in wrestling, but, I was glad.

I wasn't as upset

when it came for my wrestling season to be over.

When I was

done wrestling, it wasn't a problem for me to jump into baseball,
whereas when baseball season was over, that was it.

Like my

last game when I was a senior, I was just, there three of us,
three seniors, there was more seniors on the team then, but,
three of us started

and the two other seniors were my best

friends, one was a cousin and one was a best friend.
our final game was over we were just sort of shocked.
school sports career was over.

And when
Our high

And I'm sure a lot of it comes

from because baseball starts in the spring and when your done,
your done.

But, we just didn't want to leave the field.

I

mean we probably played one of our best games, but we just didn't
want to leave the field.

We couldn't pull ourselves away, just

because I knew there might be a chance I might not ever play
organized baseball again.

It was hard to deal with.

MacGregor: From an earlier question, I asked you if you ever
felt pressured to play by family or friends, and you didn't
really feel pressured, but did you feel they really supported
you in any way, your family?
Magee: I have to say my parents, they way they showed their
support, was just by attending.
I was growing up.

Both of my parents worked while

I never had a parent at home all through

my childhood.

And it was always nice when I,

• baseball

season would always start right at the end of the school year
when I was younger and me and my buddy would always walk to
practice and we'd go to games.

You know and I wouldn't see

my parents after school and I'd get home from school and go
to practice or go to a game.

And I always knew that if I had

a game at six o'clock that evening that at least one of my
parents would show up, because my dad worked hours that were
a lot of the time uncontrollable, but I knew I would always
have a parent there.

That was

biggest support.

As far as

everybody else, my brothers, there probably responsible for
teaching me how to play, playing catch, playing five-hundred,
you know.

I always looked up to them because they were always

playing baseball and I just couldn't wait 'til I could finally
play.

So I have to say they gave me the best support they could

was just by being there.

They didn't really talk about the

games or ask me about practices, but they just showed up.
I wanted to talk about it, then we'd talk about it.
with all the sports I competed in.

If

Same way

They just always made an

effort to be there and if they weren't going to be there, I
knew ahead of time.

But, if I didn't know that they weren't

going to be there and was looking around for them, it would
upset me, because I always wanted them to be there, and they
did the best they could during that.

But, I guess that's the

ultimate support that you can get, is just from your parents
being there.