Jefferson’s legendary baseball player, Don Bowman, will be inducted into the Midcoast Sportsman’s Hall of Fame posthumously, at the Rockland Elks Club on Oct. 17. The ceremony will take place at 5 p.m.
Over the years, Bowman’s legacy has grown larger than life. After his death on Dec. 31, 2008, Paul Bunyan-sized stories circulated throughout the county about Bowman.
In one, Bowman’s bat was so big, a mortal man could not wrap his hands around it. And another had him lift an umpire off the ground with his bat and drop him on the ground.
“Not true,” said Paul “Ducky” Levensaler, Bowman’s best friend and teammate, who played baseball with Bowman for many years. “We hunted 60-something years together and I never heard that story before.”
In an interview in 2007, Bowman said he had only been thrown out of one game and that was by Nimmy Harrrington. “We both were thrown out at Warren. There was a call at second base that didn’t go well.”
“I told Donald afterward that he looked like a frog on a lily pad,” Levensaler said.
In 2007, Bowman caught the ceremonial first pitch for the Jefferson Bicentennial softball game, using his 1940s era mitt.
Bowman drove the bus for Jefferson School for 36 years. The big burly man was highly respected by school children. On several occasions he challenged rambunctious eighth grade boys to drill a pitch at him. Bowman calmly squatted down behind the plate and caught the student’s best efforts bare handed.
Bowman grew up in a blended family with 14 children in a small house in Jefferson. They and the neighborhood children were always playing baseball in the field.
“He was a standout. He played all his life,” his sister Betty Dunton said. The family lived off the land, hunting and fishing for much of their food. “We ate a lot of beans and potatoes. One year we planted the potato peels and ate the potatoes,” brother Doc Hodgkins recalled.
While playing for Jefferson High School, Bowman got an invitation from Brooklyn Dodger recruiter Clyde Sukeforth to attend a professional tryout camp in Brewer. Although he did well, he was not offered a contract.
Bowman and Levensaler (four years his junior) played together at Oakdale Park on the Mountain Road in Jefferson, which is now a gravel pit.
“Donald played for Taylor Shoe in Gardiner, and I played over there with him. I was 14 and Donald was 18,” Levansaler said. “We played with men 30-35 years old.
“I’ll never forget the day the 1941 Chevy sedan broke down in North Whitefield. We hired a guy to take us to Gardiner and we played nine innings. We walked home. We got two rides that were about a half-mile each. When we got to Jefferson we laid down in the road (to rest). We were exhausted.
“I had worked in the hay field until four or four-thirty. We both had a drink of milk and took off for the game. We walked from Gardiner to Jefferson. That was an experience,” Levensaler said.
In 1947, Bowman was offered a contract with the Portland Pilots, a professional, but unaffiliated Class B minor league team that played in the Northeast League. He was the fourth outfielder and came off the bench to play late in the game, and occasionally started.
A powerful left hand hitter, Bowman got the start against Don Newcombe. Newcombe went on to play major league ball, winning 20 games three different years and was the only player to win rookie of the year, most valuable player and the Cy Young award.
Bowman lost the game 2-1, but collected two hits off Newcombe, including a double down the line.
Bowman was not offered a contract in 1949, so he came home to the farm in Jefferson. He was recruited by Ben Houser with the Augusta Millionaires, a semi-pro club with a Red Sox affiliation. From there he and Levensaler were “signed by Les Flemming in Watertown, N.Y. and trained by the Washington Senators. I was let go. He was signed by the Dodgers,” Levensalar said.
Bowman played with the US-Canada Borders League in upstate New York for two years in 1949-50. His contract was then purchased by a club in Lamesa, Texas. He spent four years as a minor league pitcher and pinch hitter with the Brooklyn Dodgers organization.
After he returned to Jefferson, rumors circulated that he did not return to baseball training camp, and a member of the organization showed up at Bowman’s door as he was ready to go hunting. As the story goes, Bowman was told he could either play baseball or go hunting, and Bowman chose to go hunting.
Levensaler shook his head and laughed when he heard the tale. “He was a good ball player, but truth be known, he hated the hot weather” in Texas, he said.
Looking back on those years, Bowman was quoted in When Towns had Teams, by Jim Baumer saying: “I guess you could call me a baseball gypsy or vagabond at the time. I loved to play the game and was surprised to be good enough to get paid for it. We didn’t make much money, but I was still playing professional baseball and doing something I loved to do.”
Bowman’s first year in the minors he made $200 a month and he made $400-$500 a month the last couple of years he played. “We got the shells and the managers got the peanuts,” Bowman said in a 2007 interview with the LCN.
Bowman returned to Jefferson for good, and started playing baseball for popular town teams in the area in the Knox-Lincoln Twilight League.
“We played 50-60 games a year,” Levensaler said. He and Bowman were paid to play. “I got $15 a game to pitch one night a week for Thomaston. That was big money in those days,” Levensaler said. “We were paid by Waldoboro. We weren’t supposed to be, but we were paid under the counter. They gave it to us in an envelope.”
Bowman played for the Damariscotta Red Legs and in 1960 hit .458 to lead Damariscotta to the top of the Knox Lincoln standings. He also played for Waldoboro, Warren and Thomaston town teams until he was 35. He played third base in 1956 and shortstop in 1957 for Waldoboro’s championship teams.
In 1956 he and Levensaler and Waldoboro teammates Jim Halligan, Dick Schofield, and Stan Hanna were selected to the K-L All-star team, that beat Eastern Maine All-stars 14-6 and 4-3 in a two game set. Also on the team were Deane Deshon, Gary Seavey, Jim Mayo, Butch Farley, Bob Tweedie, Bob Watts, George Starr, Dave Deshon, and Arnold Robinson. The team was managed by Floyd Johnson.
One of the highlights of Bowman’s pitching career with the town teams was when he went up against Red Norwood of the Warren team. “Norwood played Triple A with the Red Sox. He was a good ball player, but Donald out pitched him that day and we won 4-1,” Levensaler said.
A local newspaper reported it as “one of the neatest hurling duels of the season.” The game was also reported as drawing a “record attendance.”
The Waldoboro Press (Aug. 19,1948) wrote up another Bowman pitching effort as follows: “Burly Don Bowman, Waldoboro pitching ace, had a no hit, no run game in the making, when not a single Rockland batter was able to solve his offerings for the first six innings. But in the seventh, the Pirate’s Buddy Chisolm, unwilling to let Bowman join the chosen few, tripled, scoring Burlow.”
“He was the strongest man I ever saw. He had a big heavy wooden bat. I don’t know how he swung that thing. He could hit a ball farther than I’ve ever seen. He was the best player in the area,” Dean Shea commented.
“I really hated to take a throw from him from third,” Waldoboro second baseman Dick Schofield said. “He threw it on the button every time, and I had to step backward. He really had an arm.”
“I don’t think I saw him in his prime. I played with him after he hurt his arm. He was left-handed and he was a good hitter. He and Fred Burnham were homerun hitters,” Schofield added.
The Waldoboro team was sponsored by Moody’s and a championship photo with Bowman, Levensaler and Schofield and others still adorns the walls. “Percy (Moody)” had a hotdog stand. He took care of the field (Waldoboro High School, late AD Gray) and fixed it all up. Sometimes if we played a good game and won, Percy would have a steak waiting for us.”
“The Waldoboro team used to draw a pretty good crowd. The bleachers were always full. We didn’t have competition from the Patriots and the Red Sox,” Schofield added of today’s television world.
Bowman was also known locally for being a champion ox puller on the country fair circuit. He pulled cattle for 55 years all over New England and Nova Scotia.
“The Canadians had head yokes and we had neck yokes. They didn’t think we could beat them. I won five times, the last three years in a row,” Bowman said of U.S. and Canada competition in an interview with The Lincoln County News shortly before his death.
Bowman said he had a knack for it and learned by watching older teamsters. “I hauled about the biggest load, 14,000 pounds or better at Windsor Fair, with men on top and on the sides.” He had one set of Holsteins that weighed in at “5000 pounds or better.”
