Nogo comes full circle

Former Riccardi-Hartshorn hurler, Telegraph Sports Editor returns

The very first bit of writing I ever had published in a newspaper was where this story appeared today, the Milford Cabinet in Milford, New Hampshire.

The writing assignment came about because your author was a pitcher/third baseman/outfielder for Milford's American Legion Riccardi-Hartshorn Post #23 and Coach Mike Cullinan asked for somebody to send in a write-up of our games. Which I did.

The author, not a left-hander, trying to look intimidating. And I did beat Nashua!

And unfortunately, I didn't get to write up the greatest game of my pitching career, when I was on the hill and defeated Nashua's Coffey Post, a team filled with my old NHS teammates.

The report of that game was carried in the Nashua Telegraph by my future friend Merrill Lockhart, who proved to be such a lazy correspondent, he never asked the name of the fireballing righthander who defeated Coffey Post. He reported me as "The Milford Pitcher." So fame had to wait.

But I have to say it's pretty cool that the newspaper that carried my first words, now has a story about me coming back to promote a new book some 55 years later. Nobody saw that one coming. Not even me.

HERE’S TOM KING’S STORY:

By Tom King Nashua Telegraph

NASHUA – Did you know that Stan Musial has 356 lifetime at bats vs. Warren Spahn? Or that Whitey Ford had 73 lifetime starts against the Chicago White Sox, but just 42 against the archrival Red Sox.
“Never knew that,” said John Nogowski, former Telegraph Sports Editor for a seven year span in the late 1970s and early 1980s. “And I’ve read hundreds of baseball books, even had my baseball writer’s card one year. So I thought there was a book there – and there was.”
That book, Nogowski’s eighth, is called “Diamond Duels”, featuring the best pitcher-hitter battles in baseball history. He’ll be on hand Saturday from 11 a.m.to 1 p.m. for a book signing at Barnes & Noble in South Nashua.
Nogowski’s son John indirectly led to the book. The younger Nogowski played in the Majors in 2020-21 with the Cardinals and Pirates, and then played in the Dominican Republic a couple of years ago. The team’s pitching coach was Phil Regan, and Nogowski’s son was going to play golf with him. Nogowski thought it would be a good idea to look up some stats on Regan’s career, and found a site called “Stathead”.
“It had everything you could think of,” said Nogowski, a Nashua High and Rivier alum who now lives in Tallahassee, Fla.
His favorite Diamond Duel?
“There are so many great matchups, it’s hard to pick one,” he said in an email. “I suppose I’d pick Ted Williams vs. Bob Feller. They’d battled pretty evenly through their careers.”
But Williams, Nogowski added, got the upper hand late, with five homers and a double in his final 13 at-bats vs. Feller to raise his career average vs. him to match his overall career average of .344.
Diamond Duels is the second baseball book Nogowski has written. The other is “Last Time Out”, about the final MLB game of baseball’s greatest players.

Back in Tallahassee for a book signing at the local Barnes & Noble on May 31 Noon to 2 p.m.

THE TELEGRAPH ON THE COFFEY POST-RICCARDI-HARTSHORN GAME