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LL memories will last a lifetime

Sports Mailbag

Every year the annual Little League World Series brings back a flood of memories for me, and I’m especially happy the Hollidaysburg kids are the first Blair County team to play for all of the marbles in Williamsport.

In the summer of 1962, I was selected as a center fielder on the Altoona Little League all-star team that was fully expected to reach the Little League World Series.

It was the best baseball team on which I ever played. We had a strong pitching staff, great hitters and always played well defensively.

We opened play in mid-July on our home field, which was then located adjacent to the Pleasant Valley Recreation Center near 17th Street.

In those days, if you lost one game, you were eliminated.

So the pressure increased dramatically as we worked our way through the brackets.

After easily polishing off Gallitzin and Portage, we traveled to Ferndale, where we captured the District 11 championship with wins over Huntingdon and Somerset.

A victory over DuBois in Portage advanced our team to sectional play in Natrona Heights near Pittsburgh.

Hundreds of Altoona fans drove to the game to support us, and more than 1,000 spectators encircled the field for the Friday afternoon contest.

We played the Williamsport team, whose star pitcher was Gordy Miller, who later became a star running back for the Millionaires.

Miller was a big kid with a blinding fastball and an incredible curve that was virtually impossible to hit. There were no pitch counts to worry about in those days, and the scoreless game went into extra innings.

Miller struck out 22 of us in nine innings. Our pitcher, Mike Luciano, whiffed 18 in eight innings.

In the bottom of the ninth with a runner on first, a single got past our outfielder, and a Williamsport player scored the winning run, which crushed our dreams.

That was 60 years ago, and I still get emotional thinking about it.

Williamsport lost the next week, 2-1, in extra innings to Back Mountain, the eventual state champion.

Had double elimination been the tournament format in 1962, I still believe we could have been the first Blair County team to make it to Williamsport.

I’m rooting for the Hollidaysburg kids to advance as far as they can. The memories they’ve made during this championship run will last a lifetime.

Tom Bradley

Altoona

Baseball interest began modestly

I was a sub-teen player in the first informal attempt to play Little League baseball in Hollidaysburg.

Our team in no way compared to this year’s Hollidaysburg squad that is competing in the Little League World Series, but, hey, it was a start.

During the summers of 1946-47, a group of us Gaysport elementary school classmates would assemble in an unused pasture, off Broad Street and at the end of Bella Street, that belonged to the family of Gene Showalter, my boyhood BFF.

There was no Little League in the county seat so we organized ourselves into an ad-hoc team, all under the age of 13. We practiced against each other and even arranged games against a similar team from another part of town.

We carved out a playing field in the pasture and would occasionally play at Dysart and Dell Delight Parks when those diamonds were not being used by the town’s Blair and Twilight teams.

Our “Gaysport Indians” team consisted of Russ Greaser pitching, Dick Shingler catching, Showalter at first, me at second, Robert McCall at third, Lou Keller at short and an outfield of Bill Jones, John Casner and Bob Eichelberger.

Our crosstown rival was organized by Ted Thompson and included Wendell Garnett.

It wasn’t much, but it was a beginning.

Jim Wentz

McLean, Virginia

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