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Clown Prince of Baseball #3 |
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Max Patkin (1920-1999) made sport fans laugh for over five decades in an estimated 4100 ballpark appearances. His very appearance was comical. Max was described by legendary team owner Bill Veeck as “a hawk-faced, long-nosed, crane-necked, rubber-boned scarecrow.” (from Veeck As In Wreck, 1962). Tommy Lasorda called Max “the funniest man is baseball, period.”
Max got his baseball clowning start from Bill Veeck in 1946 and performed for the Cleveland Indians at a monthly salary of $650.00. Most of his long career was spent barnstorming to every corner of the country doing one-nighters for ball teams at every level. He claimed to have used every form of transportation accept for “a blue-nosed mule.”
Famous for his Old Faithful routine where he would take a drink of soda and then spew a huge halo of mist 15 to 20 times from that one gulp. Another standard routine featured his free-form dancing to “Rock Around the Clock,” which is featured in the movie Bull Durham. Teams would allow him to be a base coach. His many coaching box antics included bending over at the waist so far that his nose practically touched the ground while peering into the catcher so as to steal the sign.
His usual show would end after he would go to the plate (between innings) while warming up with a multitude of bats. He would arrive at the plate after crawling between the catchers legs. Eventually he would lay down a ground ball in the in-field and take off running for third base. The ball would arrive before he did, but Max would point out an item of interest for the third baseman to see and then would slide in once he had him distracted. The ump would always call him out and the ensuing argument would get Max thrown from the game which provided his performance exit.
Quote from Bull Durham Writer/Director Ron Shelton (printed in “The Clown Prince of Baseball, by Max Patkin & Stan Hochman,1994): “I returned home to California and announced to my friends that I was going to make a movie about baseball, the real game. “Great,” they said, “ what’s it about? I don’t know I said, but I know one thing. It starts with Max Patkin.”
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