• About Us
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Pickem Terms and Conditions
Tuesday, July 8, 2025
The Platte County Landmark Newspaper
  • Home
  • Local News
  • Opinion
  • Landmark Pickem!
    • Weekly Pickem Updates
    • Results by Week
    • The Leaderboard
    • Pickem Rules and Help
  • Landmark Live!
  • Looking Backward
  • es_MXSpanish
  • Home
  • Local News
  • Opinion
  • Landmark Pickem!
    • Weekly Pickem Updates
    • Results by Week
    • The Leaderboard
    • Pickem Rules and Help
  • Landmark Live!
  • Looking Backward
  • es_MXSpanish
No Result
View All Result
The Platte County Landmark Newspaper
No Result
View All Result

A ballplayer fails

Chris Kamler by Chris Kamler
February 13, 2019
in The Rambling Moron
5
SHARES
131
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare via Email

Over the past nine months, I’ve had the honor of knowing a Major League baseball player. A pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals and the Detroit Tigers. The story behind our encounter turned out to be cosmically timed.

My son played freshman baseball for North Kansas City High School last year. I helped the team set up a website and as such was doing some research on the history of the baseball program. The school dates back to the mid 1910’s, but their baseball program only began in the early 1940’s. I knew that Northtown had won district titles in the 1960’s and that my brother played on some good teams in the early 1990’s, but really had no idea what the history was. I stumbled across a website that listed two graduates of North Kansas City had made it to the Major Leagues. The first name I recognized immediately – Bill Kelso. Anyone who’s ever been to North Kansas City has likely stopped into Kelso’s pizza bar for a slice or a beer. He played for the Angels in the 1960’s and while he has passed away, his Angels jersey hangs over the bar.

RelatedNews

More perfect

Never enough

Nicknames

The second name was familiar, but for a different reason. Joe Presko Sr. Most Northlanders are likely familiar with the name Presko but only as a construction company or a real estate agent. The article stated he was born in 1928 but there was no date of death. Odd. I checked another baseball resource. It stated he was 89 years old. I set out on a search to find Mr. Presko. Turns out I didn’t need to look far.

In the same home he’d lived most of his adult life, Joe Presko Sr. enjoyed opening the mail every day where baseball fans would send him his baseball cards in which he would then sign and return. He always had a supply of chocolate baseballs and Tootsie Rolls on the kitchen table where he and his high school sweetheart Kathleen had been married for over 70 years and entertained their children and grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren.

Searching through the yearbooks from the mid-1940’s the baseball team’s season was never over early enough to be included in the annual, which meant there was very little school history known about Joe Presko, Sr. Luckily, I met a niece who loaned me binders and binders of news clippings and box scores of his days in the big leagues. What was missing, however, was any relationship with the high school after he graduated in 1946.

That would change in October, when he was inducted at the age of 90 into the North Kansas City High School Hall of Fame. I had the honor of reading his introduction in front of hundreds of students who gave him an extended standing ovation. He was presented with a Hornets baseball hat. The first Hornets hat he wore in over 70 years.

It was only months after the research began and, it turns out, it was right in the nick of time. Mr. Presko was laid to rest on Saturday. At his funeral, hundreds turned out. He was an American Legion coach to hundreds of kids including David Cone as well as the patriarch of a Northland dynasty.

But at his core, he was a ballplayer. A scrappy pitcher often nicknamed “Little Joe” because of his diminutive stature and his feisty curveball. And when he was laid to rest, on the table next to his coffin laid two baseball hats – one from the St. Louis Cardinals, and one from the North Kansas City Hornets. The one he received just in the nick of time.

(Catch The Landmark’s Chris Kamler on Twitter as @TheFakeNed)

Tags: chris kamler
Chris Kamler

Chris Kamler

Chris Kamler is a cybersecurity architect by day, and pain in the ass by night.

He is a twice-published author, and has over 500 columns with The Landmark under his belt. Chris is a lifelong Northlander with a son and dog.

You can reach him on most of the social networks as Chris Kamler or TheFakeNed.

Related Posts

Fourth of July

More perfect

by Chris Kamler
July 2, 2025
0

It will likely come as no surprise to those who read this space frequently that I am a bit of an eclectic person. This translates directly to my clothing. For games that I might broadcast or announce, I'll likely have...

July 4th Celebration in Platte City

Hot dogs, postage hikes, character references

by Ivan Foley
June 27, 2025
0

I had never heard the term Irish golf until I looked at the proposed plans for Creekside Irish Golf at Parkville. I thought it might be played by leprechauns under a rainbow. Googled Irish Golf and still didn’t get what...

health officer badge

Never enough

by Chris Kamler
June 20, 2025
0

Health is a fickle mistress who charges by the hour and still judges your life choices. I learned this the hard way last week when my new chiropractor—a woman whose job is to yank my spine and make it pop...

Nicknames

Nicknames

by Chris Kamler
June 12, 2025
0

Nicknames have been a part of sports and growing up ever since Abe “Top Hat” Lincoln cut down his first cherry tree, and gave it to Willie “Lyin’” Custer to turn into toothpicks. There aren’t many rules about nicknames except...

Next Post

Park Hill pays out $9,000 to custodial applicant

Popular News

  • Police

    Driver, 18, killed in Hwy. 45 crash

    58 shares
    Share 23 Tweet 15
  • Fireworks show in Platte City

    16 shares
    Share 6 Tweet 4
  • Free food, drink ready for July 4th celebration

    23 shares
    Share 9 Tweet 6
  • Nine-hole golf course planned at Creekside

    78 shares
    Share 31 Tweet 20
  • Fireworks, fireworks shows, foul tasting water

    6 shares
    Share 2 Tweet 2
  • About Us
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Pickem Terms and Conditions
Call us at 816-858-0363

Copyright © 2019-2020 The Platte County Landmark Newspaper - All Rights Reserved

No Result
View All Result
  • Subscribe Online
  • Home
  • Local News
  • Opinion
  • Landmark Pickem
    • Results by Week
    • The Leaderboard
    • Pickem Rules and Help
  • Landmark Live!
  • Looking Backward
  • es_MXSpanish

Copyright © 2019-2020 The Platte County Landmark Newspaper - All Rights Reserved