Be a clown (or two): Max Patkin and Al Schacht

Long before there was the San Diego Chicken and the Philly Phanatic, two Jewish ballplayers — more entertaining for their amusing antics than their prowess on the field — were crowned the “Clown Princes of Baseball.”

Born in 1892, Al Schacht grew up in an Orthodox household. He pitched with middling success for the minor league Newark Indians from 1913 to ’16 and signed with the New York Giants, although he never played for them. His major league career was limited to three seasons with the Washington Senators (1919-21). His injury-shortened career consisted of 14 victories, 10 defeats, and a 4.38 earned-run average. Schacht remained in the game as a coach and entertained American troops during World War II.

His pranks on and off the field were chronicled in his 1941 autobiography Clowning Through Baseball (with “grammar and adjectives by Murray Goodman”).
“When I was of tender age,” Schacht wrote, “my mother took one look at my rudder-like profile and said, ‘Alexander, you’re on your own. You are a descendant of Abraham, but not Lincoln, and besides, there are no log cabins in the Bronx.’” Schacht died in 1984.

Max Patkin, the “successor to the throne,” was born in Philadelphia in 1920. As an eight- year-old, his Jewish school class took a trip to Shibe Park, where the Phillies played in those days. Patkin fell in love with the game. After high school, he signed a minor league contract with the Chicago White Sox, but like so many other ballplayers of his era, his career was interrupted by World War II.

The gawky Patkin was always a character on the field, which is why he managed to remain connected to the game even after his playing career — like Schacht’s — foundered. He performed at thousands of ball games, county fairs, amusement parks, and other venues until he retired in 1995. He died in 1999.

Patkin became an unlikely national celebrity thanks to his role in the movie Bull Durham, which depicted life in the minor leagues.

Stan Hochman, a sports writer and columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News since 1947, met Patkin in the early 1960s. Almost 30 years later, Patkin asked for the scribe’s help in writing his life story.

According to Hochman, Ron Shelton, the film’s writer and director and a minor league player, “was a fan of Max’s…and said, ‘Max has got to be in the movie.’”
Patkin’s screen debut gave him a whole new audience. Hochman let slip a long-held secret about Patkin’s role in the movie. “Originally, he was supposed to die, with his ashes put in
the pitcher’s rosin bag,” Hochman said. “But they decided that was too much of a downer so they let him live.”

The two former players performed at the same ballpark only once, said Hochman. “Schacht was asked to critique Max’s performance, and Schacht gave kind of a sour critique. Patkin was a more physical performer,” Hochman said. “Schacht performed in a tuxedo and top hat at times and tried to be more of an elegant clown, and Max…was more slapstick.”

There was no formal confirmation, no handing down of the title, Hochman said. “No, no. Max just stole the title. He figured Schacht was dead and you couldn’t copyright something like that. So he just took it and became the ‘Clown Prince of Baseball.’”

A version of this story appear in the New Jersey Jewish News, May 10, 2007.