A quick reminder or two

The Appleton Papermakers were the Class D farm team of the Phillies from 1947-1949. By the way, awesome job by Baseball Reference lately. They have been updating a lot of minor league things of late.

1947 Papermakers

1948 Papermakers

1949 Papermakers

Mel Clark of the '47 Papermakers and Danny Schell of the '48 Papermakers were the only players on those teams to make it to the majors. Clark as an outfielder for the Phillies from 1951 to 1955 and for the Tigers in 1957. Schell as an outfielder for the Phillies in 1954 and for two games in 1955.

The other reminder is this story from late this summer about a former Papermaker and current author.

Early the next morning, Deptford resident Paul Fritz, aka Max Blue, hopped out of bed sometime after 4 a.m. to pen his daily Phillies' limerick. Yes, you heard it, daily. The sleep-deprived king of limericks has been doing this, win or lose, 162 times a season since the 1997 campaign.

Yo, Ed Wade, we've seen it before,
Phillies team in a nine-inning snore.
Rockies: not a good team -
Nor the Phils it would seem.
We fans now are pretty damn sore!

Fritz, or Blue, a retired scientist, has been writing for a living since retiring from academia in 1993. He's proven rather prolific, too. He's published nine novels, including "Shorty Spooner" this year, and two books about his beloved baseball including a 533-page epic, "Phillies Journal 1888-2008," also this year.

Fritz knows baseball. Although his own professional career was brief and ignominious, he did catch for the Appleton Papermakers of the Class D Wisconsin State League for part of the 1950 season. His battery-mate at times was Gloucester County's Dewey Gray with whom he has been socially reunited.

In 1950, the Papermakers were a St. Louis Browns farm team.

Here's Max's page. Here is a link to his book with the awesome title of God Is Alive and Playing Third Base for the Appleton Papermakers.