That Night Gary “Possum” Wren Did the Impossible

Prologue: 

Ok, this is how it works sometimes; an incident that you witness persists in your head as a series of images.  These images stir around in your memory, and are usually felt in more than one of your senses. The stronger memories become stories.  The better stories can become legends.  At the very least, they become little pleasant trips you take in your head.  These stories don’t always have to make a point, but the truth in them, if told properly, brings clarity.  Sometimes they entertain, sometimes they make you think, sometimes they touch you.

 I was sitting next to Chris Bahn in the dugout at Capaha Park while the Capahas were at bat.  It was a typical muggy summer night in Cape Girardeau.  Our opponent that night was New Madrid, one of our Bi-State league rivals. It was an important league game that would impact the league standings. They had been much improved in recent years, with the McClarty brothers from Sikeston and Mike and Grant Dambach, brothers from Lilbourn. 

 That’s when this happened……

Capaha Park, 1975 or thereabouts

If you know me at all, you know that I love baseball stories. All sports can have good stories, don’t get me wrong.  (Ok, maybe not long-distance running–I don’t think).  I have often said that there are many ways in which baseball can touch you and imbed itself into your very being:  First of, it has that perfect pace that lends itself to conversations about anything.  One story begets another.  Also, baseball has a very unpredictable nature.  Anything can happen, and sometimes it does.  It also seems to attract more than its share of “characters”.  Not really sure why. 

Many of you know Gary “Possum” Wren.  A lifelong Cape Girardeau resident, Gary Wren was a contemporary of my older brother Larry, and played baseball with him at Cape Central.  Gary was a good ballplayer and eventually ended up playing on the Capaha amateur baseball team as far back as the 1960’s.  He was later convinced to come out of retirement, playing again in the mid 1970’s with me and my contemporaries.  By that time, Gary had begun a solid career as a Cape Girardeau Police officer.  He was also a competitive body builder of note, which also plays into this story. 

So, here I was, sitting on the bench in the dugout next to Chris.  Possum was at the plate.  He got a pitch to his liking, and promptly caught it flush.  I mean flush.  The ball shot like a laser off of his bat appearing in the night sky as a cartoonish tracer of light.  As I recall the image now burned into my memory, the ball appeared to actually elongate as it took off for center field on an upward plane.  In fact, it appeared to be still going up as it began to leave the park in dead center between the left-center and right-center lights.  Nobody was talking about exit velocity in 1975, but I would be curious to know that stat about this shot.  It was simply the hardest hit baseball I could recall seeing in person.

My almost involuntary spasmatic reaction was to jump to my feet, nearly cracking my head on the dugout roof. I think I was only able to let out an unintelligent sounding, involuntary “Gyah!”. 

Gary “Possum” Wren, with one swing of the bat, had toyed with the laws of physics.  Also, the laws of probability, because this is what happened next:  The ball’s seemingly upward trajectory was interrupted by a dull vibrating thud as it squarely struck a solitary electrical wire that was tautly strung between the light poles.  Unbelievably, the ball dropped straight down from there.  Alert New Madrid centerfielder Pat McClarty sprinted to the fence and caught the ball in the air.  Huh?  What just happened?!

Manager Jess Bolen then joined a lengthy discussion with the other manager and the umpires, including a dutiful trip from the infield out to the fence line.  Possum was ultimately awarded a ground-rule double.  I actually understand this.  The ball never left the field.  Even though the poles were outside the fence, the wire between them when you looked up at it was visibly inside the fence line.  If unimpeded, the ball would have reached or possible cleared a distant Minor League backstop far beyond the fence.

I have witnessed, in person, some memorable massive home runs in my lifetime:  I was there to witness Steve Volkerding win a state Legion tournament at Capaha in 1973 with a monster blast off of future big leaguer George Frazier.  We were in the left center field stands for Big Mac’s 69^th and 70^th in 1998.  Andres Galarraga once hit a ball off of some upper deck facing in left center at Busch II so hard it bounced all the way back to second base.  Jon Astroth, an SMU teammate, hit a wind aided blast over the right field fence into nearby Ownby Stadium estimated at 500 feet.

I guess even though Possum’s blast was technically not a home run, I still say it’s the most memorable.

Author’s note: Others have chimed in on this one, including my good friend Chris Bahn. He confirmed that it was 1975. He also reminded me that the umpire who had to make this very tough call was Larry Kitchen, Possum’s best friend in this life. Finally, we lost the game by a single run, making it ultimately even more ironic. See the Southeast Missourian’s story of the game below: