Norm Stewart on joining the MU Baseball team

My getting into baseball at the college level was a bit of a fluke in the first place. It all really boiled down to a one-dollar bet.

One afternoon I headed toward the athletics department to pick up some basketball gear from the equipment manager.
Just then a brash young guy out of the St. Louis area, Emil Kammer, walked up to me and said, “What the hell are you doing?”

I knew of Kammer because he was an outstanding player out of Normandy High School. He was to become a leading pitcher on the Missouri staff, and a good third baseman as well.

I thought I would pull his leg a little, so I said, “I’m going out for baseball.”

Kammer went crazy. ”Why?”

“I’m a hell of a baseball player.”

“If you make the team, we won’t win a game,” Emil said.

Here’s this small-town kid being confronted by a wise-cracker from St. Louis. I had to come back with some sort of response. I took his remark as a challenge.

“I will bet you a dollar I’ll make the team.”

Emil said, “I’ll take that bet.”

(Norm Stewart, in Stormin' Back; p. 37)


Tiger Cage Drills Begin On Monday
(Columbia Daily Tribune, October 31, 1953)

Coach Wilbur Stalcup will launch preparations Monday for the University of Missouri's 1953-54 basketball campaign with a nucleus of nine lettermen and a likely lot of reserves and tall sophomores that make M.U. prospects at least above average.


The Tigers will have a good deal more height than usual as Jerald Mundell, 6 feet 9 inches, of Brookfield; Norman Stewart, 6-5 of Shelbyville, and Charles Denny, 6-4 of Fayette, all sophomores, join the veteran Bob Reiter, 6-8 of Brentwood, on the varsity squad.

Along with Reiter, the lettermen reporting Monday include Wynne Casteel, Jr., of Fort Lauderdale, Fla; Lloyd Elmore of Farmington, Gary Filbert of St. Joseph, Lee Fowler of Boonville, Ronald Hughes of Carthage, Bill Holst of Sedalia, and Medford Park of Lexington. Bob Schoonmaker of Lebanon, who is a regular starter on Coach Don Faurot's football team, will join the cage squad in late November.

Sophomore candidates listed by Stalcup, in addition to Mundell, Denny and Stewart include Kent Henson of Oran, Dick Jensen of Kansas City Southeast, Harold (Bud) Johnson of Columbia, Duncan Matteson of Kansas City Southwest, Eldon Morgan, Jr., of Kansas City East, Redford Reichert of Calhoun, Tom Saunders of Lebanon and Todd Sickel of Kansas City Central.