Stan Coveleski: From Spitballs to Highballs

Bill Moor remembers Stan Coveleski, the Hall of Famer who made South Bend his home after his playing days were over

BY BILL MOOR // POSTED APRIL 25, 2025

Stan (Covey) Coveleski, the Hall of Fame baseball pitcher, felt a pain in his chest while fishing on a lake near Elkhart many years ago. His first thought was that he was just hungry and needed something to eat.

“So I went to a bar and had a limburger cheese sandwich and a couple of bottles of beer,” Covey told me in a 1976 interview.

Limburger cheese? It didn't help. In fact, he felt worse.

“I drove back home, and the next day, I had to walk down to the doctor,” he added.

Covey had suffered a heart attack and didn't even know it. He ended up spending a few days in the hospital but was back to his fishing a few weeks later.

He was a tough old coot who was still chewing tobacco and drinking highballs when he was in his 80s. He grew up working in the coal mines near his hometown of Shamokin, Pennsylvania. When he was 11 years old, he picked up coke from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. - for $3.75 a month. His hands became rugged and strong.

The youngest of five brothers, Covey spent some of his down time tossing rocks at tin cans. He got good at it. At some point, he transferred his throwing accuracy to baseball and followed his older brother Harry into the major leagues.

During a 14-year career with four different teams, he won 215 games (against 142 losses) and led the Cleveland Indians to the 1920 World Series title by winning three complete games.

Covey was one of the last legal spitballers and used that pitch to strike out the likes of Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb.

“The only time I didn't chew was when I was pitching,” he told me. “When I first started to throw the spitball, I tried it with tobacco in my mouth but it didn't mix right with the spit.”

Then someone told him to use slippery elm.

“Hey, I didn't even know what that was. But I could really make the ball talk with some elm on it. Trouble was that on a hot day, I could hardly open up my lips — that stuff would really make you pucker.”

In 1929, a year after his career ended, Covey, with his wife and son, moved to South Bend when he operated a gas station for several years. He lived on West Napier Street and to the ripe old age of 94. He passed away in 1984.

A couple of years later, South Bend's new minor league ballpark was named Coveleski Stadium in his honor. It later became Four Winds Field at Coveleski Stadium. For some of us old-timers, it's hard not to refer to it simply as The Cove.

Covey, who was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1969, ended up living in South Bend for the last 55 years of his life. He was a community fixture and would always lend his hand to baseball organizations and youth events. He also was elected to the National Polish-American Sports Hall of Fame.

His favorite spot in South Bend? It was Pinhook Park where he would take his boat and fish for hours.

“Every kind of fish you want to catch is there,” he said back in 1976. “And the scenery is so beautiful. That's more important than catching fish — just being outside to enjoy the scenery.”

He did take his fishing pretty serious though. He kept minnows for bait in his garage and had his own worm beds.

“I like to get up at 4:30 or 5:00 in the summer so I don't have to wait for a bait shop to open,” he said.

In his 80s, he was still able to load his three-piece retractable boat into his Toyota.

So how did he stay in good shape in his later years?

“Well, I get a couple of shots a day, do a lot of fishing, eat good, sleep good and keep on the move.”

He said all that from his kitchen as he made himself a highball.

“I'm glad you didn't want a drink,” he yelled out to me. “Ran out of 7-Up. People say that drinking this stuff is bad for me but I've been doing it all my life.”

A life that took him from the coal mines of Pennsylvania... to the pitching mounds at major league ball parks... and then to the West Side of South Bend.

Covey didn't grow up here but he did grow old here. He once sparkled as a spitballer and later had a stadium named after him. Yes, he was baseball royalty but he also was a modest man who was comfortable just being one of us.