Catching Up With Ed Anderson

Anderson reflects on UM athletics career

By Nick Lockridge of the Missoulian

Before his latest trip to Missoula, Ed Anderson sounded nervous about returning to his hometown.

The former three-sport standout at the University of Montana was worried about making the right impression, he said. On the contrary, it seems like he’s making more of a lasting impression than anything.

Anderson, 78, returned to the Garden City this weekend to be honored as one of two inductees to the Grizzly Sports Hall of Fame. The other inductee is the 1974-75 men’s basketball team. Both were enshrined at a banquet downtown on Friday evening.

Anderson, who lives in Walla Walla, Wash., with his wife Sharon, spoke to the Missoulian about his time at UM and his life after a five-year stint in professional baseball before he spoke at the induction ceremony. Anderson earned nine letters, three each in football, basketball and baseball, while at Montana from 1951-54. He was an All-Skyline selection in all three sports.

As a senior, Anderson was the conference player of the year in both baseball and basketball. He was named a NCAA All-American in baseball in 1954 before signing a contract with the New York Yankees organization. Anderson also served two years in the Air Force and later taught college math and coached men’s college basketball for nearly 40 years. Now retired, Anderson has turned his attention to writing books on coaching.

Q: When was the last time you were in Missoula?

A: I was over there in September, I had a high school reunion, my 60^th reunion, at Missoula County High. So we came over an spent a few days there, visiting old friends. I went to grade school and high school right there.

Q: You hardly see any three-sport stars in college anymore. Why is that?

A: It’s becoming more specialized now-a-days. I was one of the few that did all of them. I had sports in the fall, the winter and the spring. It worked out well for me. I didn’t think it was a chore then, but now most college coaches require their athletes to choose one and specialize. And some do in high school as well.

Q: Back when you were at UM, how difficult was it to be a three-sport athlete in addition to your schoolwork?

A: It never really bothered me. I was a pretty good student. I went from one sport to another. They didn’t overlap that much, like they do now, so I just went to the next one. It was my routine, I guess, so I went ahead and did it. I was in athletics the whole year round you might say.

Q: You won nine letters in college. Do you think we’ll ever see a UM athlete do that again?

A: I think you will. It’s pretty rare, but even when I was there it was rare. I was the only one that did it at the university at the time, but I think somebody will do it again someday, you bet. I had a lot of two-sport athletes that I played with in college.

Q: Do you feel your induction into the Grizzly HOF is overdue or icing on the cake after all these years?

A: I’m just lucky to be included. I’m very, very happy. In a way I’m kind of surprised and thankful about it. I never thought of myself as a great athlete. I just liked what I did. I specialized in athletics more than anything else.

Q: What positions did you play?

A: Catcher in baseball, guard in basketball and in football I played tight end and did some punting in my last couple of years. One year, I think it was in the middle somewhere, maybe my junior year, they went from the platoon system to playing both ways and I had to play (defensive) end. That wasn’t my specialty. My specialty was catching the ball. We played Wyoming that year and they were a pretty good football program then; they ran the single wing and here I was, a rookie at end, with all these gold jerseys coming out there at me. I had to get through ‘em and I don’t know how I did it.

Q: When did they drop baseball at UM?

A: About five or six years later after I left they dropped it. I felt bad. It was mostly because of the weather. But it was a big sport then, just like football and basketball. We played at old Campbell Field; in that area on the southside. I also played for a semi-pro team in the summer called the Missoula Pirates. I played with the Pirates for about four years.

Q: What other institutions were in the old Skyline Conference?

A: There were eight teams. But my first year at UM we played in the Pacific Coast Conference, which is now the Pac 10. At the beginning of my sophomore year they switched to the Skyline, which had Utah, Utah State, BYU, Wyoming, Denver, New Mexico, Colorado State and us. Freshmen weren’t allowed to play varsity then, so I played in that league the whole time I was there. The Skyline was actually tougher in basketball, but the Pac 10 was tougher in football and in the other sports.

Q: How high up did you make it with the Yankees?

A: I mostly played in the minor leagues. I was with the big club at certain times, but mostly just spring training. When I got out of the Air Force I could see the handwriting on the wall. I looked around and I was the oldest guy on the team. Most guys got drafted right out of high school back then. They and I both decided it was a good decision to move on. That’s when I went into coaching.

Q: What are some of your hobbies now that you are retired?

A: That’s been a problem, this retirement. It hasn’t agreed with me. I was used to coaching and playing all this time. Now I play golf and I’ve written a few books, but other than that I struggle to keep busy.

Q: What is one of your favorite memories?

A: My senior year is when we dedicated the fieldhouse.[1] Before then we played in the gym on the south side of the campus. We played the Indiana Hoosiers, the defending national champions, in the dedication game. We gave them a good game, but didn’t win. It was in the same building they play in now, although a lot of it is different.

Edward Wayne Anderson

In a telephone interview with “Eddie” Anderson in February of 2021, I learned that he has some fond memories of old Missoula. He is the son of Paul L. and Pearl [Peterson] Anderson who hailed from Anaconda. He first came to Missoula in 1943, at age 10, after living much of his early life in the high desert mining community of Potrerillos, Chile. His father worked there periodically as an engineer for the Andes (Anaconda) Copper Mining Company beginning in 1928. When his family moved to Missoula, Ed entered the 5^th grade at Willard School, while living on South 2^nd Street, next to his uncle Rudy Anderson. He had no background in any type of sports before coming to Missoula. Since his father was often overseas for long periods, he credits his uncle Rudy with teaching him the fundamentals of sports.

One of the interesting stories Ed related was how he became a catcher. In 1946, when he attended a tryout for Missoula Junior American Legion baseball at age 13, coach Rathjen told him there were no spots available. But it wasn’t long before they needed another catcher, a position not everyone was interested in. When he was offered the job, he took it. He was the youngest player on the team and It was the position he continued to play for the rest of his baseball career.

A Missoulian article that summer profiled his American Legion team. The first game of the season matched them against a much older Fort Missoula team at the Stephens Avenue ball park (later Roosevelt School). First on the list of Legion players was 14-year-old Curtis Barclay, “outstanding slinger of the staff.” The players were Jack Robinson, Bill Kattelus, [Dick] Disney, [Wilbert] Deschamps, Billy Nash, Howard Johnson, Gene Martin, Bill Doucette, Billy Beare, Jack Sparks, Lyle Grenager, Dale Jensen, Ross Sugg, and Eddie Anderson, catcher.

Some of the other players were Don Nicol, Jimmy Corr, Bernard Hoeg, Jack Robinson, Bill Merritt, Bob Bedard, Paul Winebarger, George Paul, Richard Johnson, Bobby Riefflin, Herb Stelling, George Boileau and Roy Malcolm.

A lot of Missoulian reporting would cover several of these people later on, with Curt Barclay leading the pack. Both Barclay and Anderson went on to play professional baseball. Sugg went to the Naval Academy.

The score of that game was 8 to 7 in favor of the Fort soldiers. “Lefty” Pleasant, a well-known Bonner player, was invited to pitch the last 2 innings for the Legion game.

Ray Rocene, the local sports reporter who didn’t miss much in 50 years of observing Missoula’s sports, wrote a paragraph about them a few weeks later:

“The old proverb twisted to show that a pitcher cannot go to the mound too often . . . Barclay, 14 years old, could not be expected to fling three grueling games against a slugging team within a week. He worked hard in throwing a shutout the first Sunday, worked harder trying to hold a lead despite errors behind him Wednesday, and threw all he had the next Sunday, tiring rapidly in the closing innings. Don’t forget, he was a 14-year-old pitching against eight 17-year-olds from Butte. That’s not even odds . . . He’ll sparkle next year, so will 13-year-old Eddie Anderson, the best Legion catcher that we have seen this season.”[2]

 After attending the University of Oregon, and spending two years in the military, Barclay played a total of 10 years of professional ball, two of them with the Giants, first in N. Y. and then in San Francisco.

Anderson played sports year-round throughout his high school years, concentrating on baseball, basketball and football, but somehow, avoided track his first two years. His friend, Bob Beach, who was a good athlete himself, finally convinced him to give it a try. Ed stated that in his first year in track he was hopeless, but he stuck with it. As a senior, he managed to win the Interscholastic javelin event in 1950, when Missoula won the state championship. He also finished third in the shot that year behind Beach, who won the title.

The Daily Missoulian had this to say about him in 1950:[3]

Anderson Tries Fourth Major Sport

A sports star sparkling in an all-state style in football at end and at center, in basketball as a high-scoring player of unusual defensive ability, and in baseball as a hard-hitting Legion junior catcher, a Missoula athlete is now turning his well-muscled talents to another sport, track and field.

Eddie Anderson is a good prospect in the shot, where he has already hit close to 46 feet, and in the discus where he is daily gaining experience and distance, as the Missoula Spartans train for defense of the Interscholastic track meet title May 19-20.

Anderson has achieved state-wide fame in sports activities though he will not be 18 years old until next September 18. His sports career began at Willard grade school where he helped win championships.

In 1946, at the age of 13, he won the job as regular catcher of the Missoula American Legion nine, hit .300 that first season, the next year batted .354 in the same spot, hit .358 in a lusty 1948, and wound up his eligibility in 1949 with .376 Legion slugging average in Class A league play.

In basketball he started with the Bombers in 1947, played in half a dozen games as a Spartan, made the Spartan squad in 1948, in 1949, as forward, helped Missoula county high win the state title and was selected to the all-state basketball squad, while leading the Spartan scoring with 281 points. Anderson played forward, center, guard and backboard control for the 1950 Spartans so well that he again was named on the all-state team and led the team in scoring with 317 points.

In football Eddie played center for the 1946 Bombers, was the regular Spartan center in 1947 as a sophomore, winning honorable mention in the all-star selections, in 1948 played center and did the goal kicking, 13 without a miss, to make the second all-state football team. At the end in 1949 Anderson made the all-state team, booted eight extra points after touchdowns.

Standing better than 6 feet 2 inches, weighing more than 190 pounds, Anderson is renowned for keeping in excellent playing condition at all times. A slight eye handicap has been corrected, though at times last year he wore contact lenses. He is a good golfer, too. This summer he expects to catch for the Missoula Pirates.

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In the summer of 1950 Anderson played with the city league semi-pro Pirates, who over the years played against a wide array of teams from around the region. Semi-pro ball had carved a niche that Montana fans appreciated dearly. This organization had played since at least 1940, hosting quality players such as Paul Szakash (who was coaching in 1950), Aldo Forte, Hank Blastic, Doug Campbell, Guy Rodgers, Sandy Durrant, Cub Potter, the Helding brothers, Lou Olson, Nick Mariana, Bob Cope, Jack Swarthout, Gene Carlson, Hal Sherbeck, Bobby Hendricks, Lynn Colvert, and Jack Morgan, a promising Missoula athlete who was wounded in WW2. Anderson had a team leading .359 average by early August.

Anderson played for the semi-pro Pirates for a couple more seasons, in addition to four years of Grizzly baseball where he was voted All American in 1954. He also played in the Butte Copper League in the summer of 1953. A Rocene article in 1953 mentioned that he attended an ROTC camp in Moses Lake that July, which was one of the reasons the Pirate ball club had been inactive. He was signed by the Yankee organization and played for the Topeka Owls in the summer of 1954 and then began coaching Grizzly cub football in the fall of 1954. In January of 1955, after 4 years of ROTC, Anderson and his buddy, Bob Beach joined the Air Force.

Anderson married Lyla Lee Clausen of Missoula in 1952. She graduated from MCHS and was employed as a bookkeeper. Her parents, Carl and Ella, came to Missoula in 1928 and started Clausen Refrigeration. By the time Eddie entered the Air Force they had started a family with their daughter.

Rocene steadily followed Anderson’s play, even in the Air Force, noting that he was hitting at a torrid pace in air base games. By September, 1955 he had caught 65 games, hit .416, and his team had won 50 of them. A 1956 Rocene article noted that Anderson would be leaving the Air Force in early 1957 and would be going to the Denver Bears, a Yankee farm team.

Interestingly, in the spring of 1956, 25-year-old Jack McKeon came to Missoula as the catcher/manager of the new pioneer league Timberjacks. He had played for Hutchinson in the Western Association, the same league Anderson played for as a catcher in Topeka.

In March of 1957 Rocene reported that Anderson had bright prospects with the Yankees:

“Eddie Anderson, all-star Skyline athlete in baseball, football and basketball, now a catcher for the Richmond International class AAA club, has attracted New York attention in training camp, after having been held over from the rookie camp. Bill Dickey, veteran Yankee coach, likes the way Anderson, 6.2, 200, moves. He was the first glasses-wearing catcher with the Yankees since 1951. He wears the specs to correct near sightedness. He has found them no particular hazard, never a break in any game, wears horn-rimmed glasses tinted for night ball now.

“Gordon Jones scouted Anderson while Eddie was playing for the Grizzlies, after the Indians had indicated interest in him earlier in his career. The story from New York is that Jiggs Dahlberg told an old army pal, Lou Maguolo of the Yankees, about Anderson and Jones was assigned to bird-dog him. He lost no time in signing the young Grizzly, who later went into the air corps for two years and played a lot of baseball, as well as basketball there.

“Born in Butte 24 year ago, Eddie spent five years of early life in South America where his father was stationed as a mining engineer. At the age of 12 he was catching for the Missoula American Legion baseball team, later the Grizzlies and the Missoula Pirates. His first professional whirl was in the Western Assn. before he went into the air corps. He played three years of outstanding end for the Grizzly football team, three years for the Grizzly basketball team, caught three years for the ball club, was outstanding as a Spartan athlete in football, basketball, track, where he won the Interscholastic title as a javelin thrower in 1950 (172.7).

“His wife and two children live in Missoula, expect to join him in the spring.”

 Anderson was inducted in the Montana State University basketball Hall of Fame in April of 1957. Players from 1905 through 1954 were eligible, and as of 1957 only 24 players had been inducted. Fred Whisler, who played in 1912 and 13, was inducted with Anderson.

Rocene noted in February 1957 that Anderson had been invited by the Yankees to stay over for their regular camp. He left their camp in March and in the summer of 1957, he was playing at Peoria, Illinois. In October, he and Curt Barclay were pictured in the Daily Missoulian together with their former American Legion coach, Eddie Rathjen. They were honored at a “welcome home” lunch at the Montmarte Café in Missoula.

In March of 1958 a paragraph by Rocene noted that Anderson was calling his pro career to a close:

“As Eddie Anderson was not getting a chance to play as second-string catcher for Binghamton Eastern League, he asked for his release, and returned here Friday night. He had a good spring training season, hitting .500 at Binghamton and Denver, he said, and he is not sure what he will do next.”

In June of 1958, Anderson was playing for the East Helena Copper Leaguers and later that fall was on a Butte team, the McQueens. A Rocene comment stated that he had played briefly in Canada and had been offered a job at Lethbridge, but “is taking University work to qualify for a coaching post offered him.”

Anderson was an assistant football and basketball coach at Great Falls, 1958 – 1960, and head basketball coach in Kalispell 1960 – 1961. He went back to Great Falls 1962 – 1964, then was head football at Helena 1964 – 1968, and moved to Sammamish High School in Bellevue, Washington. He entered college coaching at Pacific Lutheran in 1974, where he became head basketball coach, head baseball coach, and football trainer. He also taught math at PLU.

Anderson said the baseline of his coaching philosophy was always teamwork. Of his days at U of M he most admired George ‘Jiggs’ Dahlberg and Naseby Rhinehart, who he worked for, and Chuck Davis, the toughest player he ever had to guard. On pro ball he felt he got started too late and was always the oldest guy on the team, staying back when the youngsters went to town and playing scrabble with Tony Kubek. Of the Yankee lineup, he most admired Yogi Berra who was always helpful.

Anderson has a written a novel that is available at Amazon, titled, The Life Story of A “Jock”, by Chris R. Stevens, his pseudonym.