OUTTAKES
These are things that slip through the cracks when writing stories and I and my friend Bill Bumerton felt it would be great for others to see what they miss. Of course, Bumerton has missed a lot while he was away serving the military as a jet fighter pilot. Now Bumerton is back, bumming around town in his 1954 Hudson Hornet seeing what trouble he can get into. So these outtakes are dedicated to the original bum.
BILL BUMERTON
Butch Stuart certainly was among the better catchers that have played high school ball in West Sound. Stuart played for Central Kitsap, graduating in 1970 and then being drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 9th round (205th overall pick).
Stuart had a bad arm when he signed and didn’t last long in professional baseball, but he had a big impact on local fastpitch softball teams and coached peewees for years.
He also had a big impact on the late Elton Goodwin, who would go on to coach three state championship teams at South Kitsap and reach the Washington State Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame as well as the Kitsap Sports Hall of Fame.
Stuart was playing for a Silverdale Babe Ruth team and was playing against a South Kitsap Babe Ruth team one day back in the 1960s. The two teams were fighting for a playoff spot and Goodwin, a lefty, was on the mound for SK and Stuart was behind the plate for Silverdale.
“It was the championship game of some sort and it was the fifth inning and I hit one over the centerfield wall (off Goodwin) and we ended up beating them 1-0 or 2-0,” says Stuart.
Years later, when Goodwin retired from coaching (2003), Stuart decided to do the proper thing and call him to congratulate him on his retirement and his successful career.
“He answers and I tell him who I am and he goes, ‘(bleep) you,” Stuart says, laughing. “Then he adds, ‘I never did like you since you hit that home run off me.’”
Of course, anybody who knew Goodwin would understand that is typical Goodwin having a little fun. Goodwin was an original and there will probably never be another like him. He was loved by many and his shocking death almost four years ago at 63 sent ripples throughout the local community.
In 1985, Stuart’s truck slid off the road and went over an embankment and his left leg was crushed. He’s had countless surgeries on it since and just recently spent 44 days in the hospital suffering through an infection in the leg.
Between those Babe Ruth days and that accident, Stuart had a good career catching a softball. He says now that the best baseball pitcher he ever caught was the late Brian Wright and the best fastpitch softball pitcher he caught was the late Punk Duzenski.
Recalling Duzenski rekindled memories of the late Red Brown, owner of the Pop’s Inn Tavern in West Bremerton. Brown was a major sports sponsor in town and for years sponsored the Pop’s Inn team that Duzenski and Stuart played on.
Brown was a character and Stuart remembers that Brown would show up at their games in his big green Cadillac.
“We used to play doubleheaders on Tuesdays and Thursdays and he would show up in his Cadillac and open up his trunk and there would be three, four or five cases of beer sitting in ice,” Stuart says. “Water would be just dripping from his trunk. Needless to say, we had a good time.”
