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.
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