The UA Needs Antonio Teakowa as the Face of Baseball
by June Morris for The Delle Compass
August 21, 1929
Antonio Teakowa is a class act. Ask around and you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone who knows the man that has a disparaging word to say about him. His coaches now and throughout his career before the UA will tell you that he’s a hard worker. He’s among the first and last on the field every day, and he’s often seen helping his teammates to finetune their play with his expert attention to detail and a patience for routine. He is the de facto leader of the Stars clubhouse, the clear choice for team captain if the team were to name a formal captain. Teakowa is everything you could ask for in a player, and great role model off the field to boot.
No doubt, Teakowa will make a great coach or manager when his playing days are through, if that’s the path he chooses. Strangely, prior to the UA, Teakowa did choose a path away from baseball. After graduating from St. Edward University with a degree in economics, Antonio Teakowa’s skill as a baseball player for his college squad was well-known (or as well-known as “well-known” went in those days). He was recruited by at least three major touring ball clubs, but had no plans to continue playing after college, as he intended to take an accounting job in his hometown of St. Edward, Snowgate, and work his way into public political service.
It’s certainly a gamble, today, to attempt a career in baseball. In the days before the UA, it was nigh impossible. Even the biggest baseball stars often struggled to make ends meet on touring teams. Ballplayers were a rough bunch, living on the fringes of society, choosing passion for their game over practical living, security, and sometimes even their own basic needs. They had a reputation as scoundrels, vagabonds, rapscallions. Grown men playing a kids’ game were considered gauche at best and assumed to be downright criminal at worst. With his wife Maryanne pregnant with their first child, Antonio knew baseball was over for him when he graduated in 1918.
For the next six years, Antonio put his degree to work managing the accounts of Cedar & Sons manufacturing in St. Edward. Maryanne found success as an illustrator and was eventually offered a job at a magazine in Delle. In 1924, the family (now with three children) moved south to Delle, where Antonio found another accounting job. During their first summer in Delle, Antonio reconnected with his college teammate, John Murphy, who organized exhibition games for touring teams in the area. Antonio found himself back in the world of the game he loved so much in his youth. He began to volunteer his time coaching kids in the local youth league even though his own children were too young to yet participate.
On a Friday evening in August 1926, Antonio was at the local field hitting fly balls to his youth team while a handful of high school players lingered after they had used the field for their team’s practice. Teakowa’s old friend Murphy came to visit and brought Delle Stars owner Joe Horn and a few players from the Stars along with him. At that time, the Stars were a touring team, and a very successful one. The Delle Stars were as close to a “household name” as baseball had in 1926. Murphy introduced Antonio to the Stars owner, and Horn revealed that he was familiar with Teakowa’s work on the field from his college days. They struck up a friendship, and when Horn later revealed to Teakowa that he planned to take the Stars to the new professional league, he offered him a tryout. Whether it was Teakowa’s talent for economic prognostication or simply his trust in his friend Joe, he decided baseball was worth another try and found that he could still swing a bat.
Now, three years later, Antonio Teakowa is one of the biggest stars in the nation, providing well for his family, competing to take the Stars to the playoffs for the second time, and in the race for a Most Valuable Player award and a Home Run Title. He is an intelligent, ethical, and charismatic person. The Uplantic Association is lucky to have him. As we enter the 1930’s, the power of media is more crucial than ever to the success of an endeavor like professional organized baseball. Commissioner Jim Windsor and his team would be wise put Teakowa at the forefront as an ambassador of the game to the rest of society. They should put him in front of cameras and microphones as much as they possibly can. If anyone can change the bad reputation of pro ballplayers, it’s this man. If anyone can make baseball a national family pastime in Uplantica, it’s this man. The UA is off to a great start. If they can make the most of their popularity here in the early years of their league and of our nation, baseball could very well become a part of the Uplantic national character for generations to come.
Uplantic Sports Today 