Alva Review-Courier -

April signals the beginning of baseball season in the United States. Therefore, it is appropriate to tell one of the thousands of interesting stories that have come from the annals of what used to be called “America’s pastime.”

This story is about a pitcher named Ray Caldwell who played in the major leagues from 1910 to 1921. The first thing we need to note is that Caldwell was not exactly a role model for youngsters aspiring to become baseball stars someday.

Caldwell had a well-deserved reputation of partying and drinking too much. He occasionally showed up at the ballpark in no condition to...