Birth of a clown

Today marks what would have been birthday No. 105 for long-ago minor league pitcher Max Patkin, the pride of West Philadelphia High School.

“I might have been the only athlete at West Philadelphia High to flunk gym,” Patkin once says.

Patkin later archives his lasting fame in the game not as a pitcher, but as a clown.

His post-playing career as the last “Clown Prince of Baseball” starts on a whim in 1946 during the Cleveland Indians’ exhibition game against the Harrisburg Senators, their Class B affiliate.

Max Patkin

Patkin at the time in 1946 is pitching for Cleveland’s Eastern League affiliate in Wilkes-Barre, where he already is craving to play the part of an on-field fool.

Wilkes-Barre general manager Mike McNally asks Patkin to join him on a road trip on that July day in 1946 to Harrisburg for Cleveland’s exhibition game against the hometown Senators.

Once there, McNally introduces Patkin to Harrisburg manager Les Bell, suggesting to Bell that Patkin and his antics could help entertain the crowd.

Patkin does, the crowd approves and Patkin receives $100 for his debut performance before a crowd of 3,333.

Among those reportedly laughing the loudest is Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack, the normally quiet and straight-laced icon who happens to be in the stands that day to scout Cleveland and its prospects in Harrisburg.

After his debut in Harrisburg, Patkin spends 47 years as an on-field clown, traveling 7 million miles and working more than 4,500 straight games before a badly sprained ankle in 1993 effectively ends his career at age 73.

“For years and years,” Patkin later says, “Earle Mack, Connie’s son, would pull me over to his father and say, ‘Dad, this is the guy who made you laugh in Harrisburg.’ ”