Baseball Clown Patkin Enjoys a Reborn Career

The Harrisburg Senators are stretching in shallow left field and a line from a Paul Simon hit, “I need a photo opportunity,” roars over the loudspeakers as Max Patkin arrives for a night’s work at RiverSide Stadium.

A year ago, that line could have been Patkin’s theme song.

Through more than four decades of entertaining fans across the country, the Clown Prince of Baseball had little more to show for his antics than a bum knee, a bad back and a list of cheap places to sleep from coast to coast.

But a part in the baseball movie, “Bull Durham” has changed all that.

“It’s been the biggest summer I’ve ever had,” the 68-year-old Patkin said during an interview before a recent Class AA Eastern League game between the Senators and the Albany Yankees. “People recognize me in airports, in restaurants. It’s been a rejuvenation of my career.”

The Harrisburg visit was a homecoming of sorts for Patkin, who was born in King of Prussia, just outside Philadelphia. It was here that the sore-armed, broken-hearted former minor league pitcher started a new career making people laugh. That was in 1946. They’re still laughing.

For a moment, the man with the contortionist face and bulbous nose actually looks sad as he recalls being released by the Wilkes-Barre Barons, a Cleveland Indians farm team that had no room for a right-handed pitcher who clowned around in the coaching box when he wasn’t on the mound.

“That was the most depressing day of my life. I actually cried,” Patkin said as he awaited instructions from a camera crew taping part of a network show scheduled to air this fall.

After his release, Patkin earned $100 for being a clown coach at a game in Harrisburg, and when Indians owner Bill Veeck learned of his antics, Patkin’s wish came true. He was off to the big leagues.

With a straight face, Patkin claims 80,000 fans jammed the ballpark the day of his first performance in Cleveland. Later, with a grin, he admits most of the fans were there because baseball greats Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker were being honored.

Patkin bounced around briefly in the majors, then began barnstorming around the minor leagues, taking his show just about anywhere for a laugh.

The act hasn’t changed much through the years:

He mimmicks the visiting team’s first baseman during warmups before an inning, flings dirt on himself while giving exaggerated signs to batters, kisses unsuspecting baserunners, gets doused with buckets of water and shaving cream and is unceremoniously ejected by the umpires.

“Certain nights I do get stale, yes I do,” Patkin says as he sits in the trailer that serves as the Senators’ dressing room. Especially when the crowds are sparse and aren’t laughing.

On this night, however, the players and fans in Harrisburg seem to inspire him. He wants to do his schtick for two more years, then only half-jokingly says he’d like to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Though he doesn’t expect to get there, Patkin says he and the late Al Schacht, the game’s original clown prince, deserve to be in Cooperstown for all they’ve done for the game.

For the moment, though, he’s happy to bask in the afterglow of the movie and the fame it has brought him. He tells anyone who will listen about a recent experience in a North Carolina airport.

The captain noticed him in the airport lounge, invited him to sit in first class and announced to the other passengers that they had a well-known star aboard. Patkin’s malleable mouth breaks into a wide grin as he tells of spending most of the rest of the flight signing autographs.

“Honest to God, it’s fantastic,” he gushes while patiently waiting for further instructions from the film crew. “It’s just the greatest thing in the world.”

Life hasn’t always been so rosy for the man who wears a baggy Mets uniform and a Montreal Expos cap twisted sideways on his head. Some years ago, his then-wife bashed him in the head with a hammer. He also survived a car crash and made a hasty exit from a burning plane.

Patkin complains when he compares his fee, usually between $1,000 and $1,500, with the much higher ones paid to the San Diego Chicken and other baseball mascots.

“The Chicken, he’s made more in five years than I’ve made in 43 years,” Patkin says. He quickly adds that he isn’t bitter, but his droopy, sad eyes seem to betray him.

Seconds later, though, he’s laughing again, telling how for the first time in his life he’s had to hire an agent. There are negotiations for a Max Patkin line of T-shirts and more appearances next season, his 44th.

“It’s hard work. I’ve got to get my rest,” he grouses. But again, his eyes betray his tone.

They sparkle as yet another fan tries to steal a few seconds of his time.