Before Micky Mantle and Roger Marris there was Orland “Whip” Jantzen, Ray Hogan, Ben Knight, Hazel Houck and Ernest Babek, all familiar names in this neck of the woods. It was a time when it was still a game and men earned a living during the day and played baseball at night and weekends. Most had to pay their own way when traveling to out-of-town games. It was 1949 and the Mangum Red Socks semi-pro baseball team hit the field to defend their 1948 League Championship title.

Recently, Carol Woodard, daughter of “Whip” Jantzen sent us the above photograph of the 1949 team. After receiving the picture we pulled out some of the dusty issue of the Mangum Daily Star to do a little research on this team of men.

Semi-pro baseball was so big in Mangum at the time the city fathers had a vote of the citizens which would allow them to play in the city baseball park for 10 years. A full page ad in the Mangum Daily Star on April 21, 1949 sang the praises of “this year’s team” and invited citizens to come out for the season opener against Wellington, Texas on April 24th.

The citizens came out in full force. An article in the Mangum Daily Star put the number of fans at 1,000 to see the season opener which Wellington won 4-3. The game ended in the 8th inning when a downpour moved into town.

Carol Woodard shares, “My dad, “Whip” Jantzen was coach/player of the team. I think he played on the team for two seasons and while playing had a job at Ponder’s Chevrolet. He, my mother and I lived with my grandparents J.W. and Nora Gilliam, those summers.”

Jantzen played baseball at Weatherford and helped to recruit many players to come to Mangum. An example of this is C.J. Odneal who came from Fort Smith Arkansas to play with the Mangum team.

In June of 1949 Ray Hogan joined the team shortly after being hired by the Mangum School Board as a coach. Hogan is very well known in our community and, in 1949, was one of the best coaches in Oklahoma. Before coming to Mangum in 1949 he had coached at Friendship and Martha where he compiled a record of 199 wins and only 39 losses.

Like many teams, players would come and go throughout the season and you would never know exactly who would be on the team as the season progressed.

Mangum played in the Capital Commercial League that had teams from Altus, Elk City, Carter and Clinton in Oklahoma and Shamrock, Mobetee, Mephis, Childress and Pittman in Texas. Occasionally they would bring in other teams for exhibition games such as the time the Oklahoma City Natural Gassers came to town. On the day Mangum played the Gassers, fans were treated to three games with the Mangum High School and Mangum Junior College playing the early games.

At some point during the season the Mangum Red Socks joined the Red River Valley League. Many of the other teams had gone by the way at that time but the Red Socks hooked up with teams from Wellington, Memphis, Altus, Childress and Shamrock to form the new league.

Mangum spent most of the remainder of the season in 2nd place in the league, but when the playoffs began Mangum got on a hot streak and ended the season as league chmpions.

A July 25th article about the upcoming playoffs quoted Ray Hogan talking about the injuries and “Charlie horses” being dealt with by the team. In the article he stated, “We’ll be in good shape if the liniment holds out.” Hogan led Mangum to the only Baseball and Basketball boy’s state championships.

Members of the team in 1949 were “Whip” Jantzen, Ray Hogan, Hazel Houck, Ben Knight, Bill Murphey, Danny Deaver, Ralph Rogers, Jimmy Sanders, Thurman Sanders, C.J. Odneal, Moss Parker, Jim Hutchins, Bill Word, Sonny Duvall, Pat Plew, Junior Riddle, Ernest Babek, Buck Buchanan, Harold Wheeler, Sonny Warlick, Zeke Estes, Ed Tatyrek and Elton Dial. These names were taken from the original roster and from game summaries in the Mangum Daily Star. Again, players would move from one team to another. If you have more information on the Mangum Red Socks please share with us so we can share with the readers.