Take Me Out to the Ball Game
By Beverly Belcher Woody
This past week, I was playing catch with my 11-year-old grandson, Turner. I missed the throw and got hit right between the eyes. While nursing a knot on my forehead and two black eyes, I got to thinking about Patrick County baseball.
Recently, former Patrick County baseball star and MLB player, Brad Clontz, was honored with a new scoreboard at the Patrick County Baseball Field. In 1995, Mr. Clontz pitched as a rookie in the World Series for the Atlanta Braves who went on to become World Champions.
There have been more great baseball players from Patrick County. In 1951, Sam Carter was an African American pitcher for the Crossroads baseball club in Ararat, Virginia. In August of that year, Mr. Carter pitched a perfect game of baseball. This means there are three hitters for each of the nine innings and not a single hitter makes it to first base. Mr. Carter did one better; he struck out all 27 hitters! According to qualitydigest.com, the odds of pitching a perfect game by a professional baseball player are one in 46,800. While Mr. Carter was an amateur player, this was still quite a remarkable record. The story was picked up by the International News Service and carried in newspapers all across the country.
Baseball has always been a part of Patrick County’s history. In the 1970s, Wednesday nights were for Connie Mack baseball games. My grandfather and I attended the games at the Rotary Field in Stuart every week.
Baseball first arrived in Patrick County in the early twentieth century. Some of the old-timers were skeptical of the benefits of baseball. Isaac Underwood wrote in his journal, “Young men are getting up baseball clubs to develop muscles, but if they had to thresh out wheat with a stick, they would soon have muscles without resorting to athletic clubs.”
The first written record of the game being played in the area comes from the publication, the Mountain Laurel. The author preferred to remain anonymous and signed his name YKW for “You Know Who.” YKW recalled that Jim Divens from Pittsburgh came to Meadows of Dan and began organizing a baseball team. Ed Reynolds donated land to be used as a baseball field. Wives and mothers sewed the uniforms made of red cotton cloth. The first team became the Meadows of Dan Red Birds. Vesta, Mayberry, Laurel Fork, and Willis got into the act and soon a league was formed. Below the mountain, the Big A community formed a baseball team too.
Pictured above this article is the 1920 Meadows of Dan Red Birds: lying down, Dan Boyd; front row – Jim Conner, unknown, Rufus Boyd, Rufus Wood, Tom “Diddle” Conner, Zelotes Boyd; middle row – Luke Helms, Waller Helms, John Edd Helms; back row – Emory Helms, George Helms, Tump Spangler, and Fleming Helms.
Many baseball teams were formed around the workplace. Textile mill teams to the south of Patrick, and coal camp teams to the west of Patrick, were very competitive from the twenties to the forties. I have much admiration for a man that can work in a hot, linty textile mill or dark, dank coal mine all week and still feel like playing baseball on Sunday. After WWII, the local community ball teams began to decline.
Thankfully, many local youngsters still enjoy the camaraderie of the game, and girls are finally being recognized (in softball) for being true athletes, just like the boys.
(Woody may be reached at rockcastlecreek1@gmail.com.)
