After his profession, which included pitching for the World Sequence champion Pittsburgh Pirates in 1960, Mizell returned to North Carolina and as soon as advised an interviewer, “I used to be working in public relations and I made a whole lot of speeches round Winston-Salem. I’ll wager I made about 100 speeches a yr. I at all times loved speaking to the general public. I used to do that with the Cardinals, speaking at PTA conferences and to church teams within the St. Louis space.
“In 1966, I used to be elected Chairman of the Davidson County Board of Commissioners for a four-year time period. The subsequent yr a Republican delegation got here to see me and requested me to hunt the Fifth District seat in Congress. I considered it a bit of and mentioned sure. It was so simple as that.”
Mizell’s lack of schooling past highschool didn’t appear to handicap him as he twice gained re-election. And when he was defeated in 1974, former Republican Home colleague Gerald Ford, who had turn into President, appointed him an Assistant Secretary of Commerce, a place Mizell stuffed for 2 years.
However baseball success didn’t essentially imply success in politics. Washington Senators Corridor of Fame righthander Walter “Massive Prepare” Johnson misplaced a race for U.S. Congress for the GOP in 1940 when he promised to “research up on them points” if he had been elected from Maryland. He was not.
Chicago White Sox Corridor of Fame first baseman “Cap” Anson gained a race for Chicago Metropolis Clerk in 1905, however was defeated soundly in a race for sheriff the next yr, failing to win even the first. Because the Chicago Tribune famous, tongue in collective cheek, “When an elected official’s eagerness for another elective workplace is of the type that makes him a coward in his current workplace, that cowardice will not be a great qualification for an additional job. The tales which (Anson) advised on the platform throughout his marketing campaign a yr in the past appeared then to win him votes, however the individuals might not (be) so ‘simple’ a second time.”
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