Goin' Bohlen: Where Have You Gone, Max Patkin?

While the sports world has been stunned by the deaths of Wilt Chamberlain, Payne Stewart and Walter Payton in the past few weeks, Max Patkin bought the farm Saturday with hardly a ripple of notice.

Most people wouldn't know it, but "bought the farm" is definitely an appropriate euphemism for Patkin's death. He would have wanted his passing to be remembered a little differently than everyone else's.

Max Patkin was the Clown Prince of Baseball, a one-man barnstorming road show who appeared in nearly every minor and major league ballpark in the country over the course of 50 years.

His rubber-faced shtick was unforgettable to generations of fans.

When the visiting team would take the field, Patkin would stand two feet behind the first baseman and imitate his warm-up. When the player realized he was being parodied, he'd turn around, only to find Patkin standing around as if nothing had happened.

Patkin would take an at-bat against the pitcher while he warmed up, hitting a pre-arranged lob and then running to third base where he was thrown out. He would argue the call, doing his best Earl Weaver imitation by throwing his hat around and kicking dirt onto the ump.

And his best trick was probably the never-ending spit. He would take a long, long drink of water and spit a geyser that went on for at least a minute.

But what made his antics truly funny was his appearance--his baggy pants, hat tilted to the side and question mark for a number were complemented by his rubber limbs and toothless jaw.

He always wore the same dumbstruck grin, even though there was more going on in his head than he let on.

I saw Patkin perform at least twice in my life. And for a young boy at a Springfield, Ill. Cardinals game, he made an evening with the national pastime complete.

When players like Bernard Gilkey, Ray Lankford and Todd Zeile didn't have the Class-A team winning, Patkin was there to keep the crowd hanging around anyway.

Those two times were just two of the more than 4,000 games he performed after beginning his baseball clown career during World War II.

It began on a whim.

A minor league pitcher in the Chicago White Sox organization, Patkin joined the Navy and played for a service team in Hawaii.

During a game against the Army Air Forces, Joe DiMaggio sent a Patkin pitch into the night. As DiMaggio trotted around the bases, Patkin, on the spur of the moment, decided to follow him and mimic his run.

He got hearty laughs and he never looked back, and he remained dedicated to his craft through thick and thin.

On July 20, 1969, he performed in front of four fans at a Great Falls, Mont. game. The rest of the town, and the rest of the nation, was watching men walk on the moon.

There just aren't many like him anymore. Sure, the San Diego Chicken barnstorms around the country, but the man performing hides behind a costume. There was no barrier between Patkin and his audience.

In a fitting tribute a few years ago, Patkin played himself in "Bull Durham," the consummate movie on minor league baseball.

With his death, yet another link to baseball's glorious past has been lost.

When Mickey Mantle died, DiMaggio was still around. Ted Williams remains now that DiMaggio has passed on. But Williams, arguably the best hitter ever, is still mortal, and may not be around much longer.

And while Patkin certainly wasn't on the same athletic level as those baseball greats, his comedic genius certainly was top-notch.

The baseball clown has now gone the way of the shine ball, the high mound and the deadball era.

And, unfortunately, the game will never be quite the same.