Our History…

by Jerry Rapp - Limestone Independent News (May 2004)

The youth program has always had tremendous support from Limestone High School, where the program now spreads out over a wide area of the campus, including the two girl’s softball diamonds at the far north end, the two original Little League diamonds beyond the varsity baseball diamond, and the Pony League diamond at the south end. The new field will actually consolidate activities closer to the concession facilities.

Yes today’s sophisticated program is a far cry from the little summer recreation program that Keith Holloway envisioned in the spring of 1954. I have told the story of Bartonville Little League’s beginning before, but I think it deserves another shot on the occasion of its 50th anniversary.

Holloway was coach and gym teacher at Bartonville Grade School, and when the Board authorized funds for a summer recreational program in 1954, he thought a Little League program could become a part of the activity. He talked to his former high school coach, Eddie Stonebock, who had recently started such a league at Manual, and Bruce Saurs, who had set up a league at Central, and he became enthused about the possibility of trying it in Bartonville. Consequently, he invited the fathers of several of his students to a meeting at the grade school, and 15 showed up. And at that meeting, Bartonville Little League was born.

Holloway warned that it would take a lot of groundwork and help from a lot of parents to get this thing going, and as Art Hattermann, one of the founding fathers, and the eventual first president, said later, “We found out that he was right. “We were short on manpower, found it hard to interest people in our project, and even ran into a shortage of players, but still things went along more smoothly than you might expect.”

Funds, as usual, were a problem, and obtaining sponsors who would buy uniforms and equipment for the four teams seemed like a stumbling block to those fellows at the first meeting. But one of them, Don Stone, abruptly left the meeting, strode across the street to his brother Wayne’s funeral home, and came back shortly with a check for $300...and Stone’s Mortuary became the league’s first sponsor. Spurred by that success, the group rounded up four more sponsors before the next meeting, so Laidlaw Wire and Lauterbach Lumber combined on one team, and Bartonville Bank and Keystone signed up for the other two.

In addition to those sponsorships, the Bartonville School District paid the director’s salary the first year, a booster ticket sale helped defray some of the expenses, and the concession stand, managed by Mrs. Hattermann, brought in additional funds. That “stand,” incidentally, was a far cry from the current concession facilities. The Hattermanns set up two card tables behind the rickety old backstop and brought soda pop and candy that they stored in their garage, and set up shop each night. As Art said later, “Betty and I had to haul that stuff down and back all the time, but we needed suits and bats and balls, and the concession money helped, along with the sponsorships.”

Officers who led the league through the crucial first year were: Hattermann, the president; Howard “Bow-Wow” Lane, the vice president; John Sanderson, secretary; Don Stone, treasurer (possibly because he had Brother Wayne’s check in tow), and Bill Stagg, publicity chairman (and that was no doubt because Bill’s wife was Bessie, who owned and operated the “Bartonville News” with an iron fist.)

Double headers were played two nights a week on the Keystone diamond, the first game starting at 5:15, and it had to be concluded, by hook or by crook, by 6:15 so the second one could get in before dark.

So, the league was off and running, but it was obvious that it needed a broader base, and the following year the officers invited boys from Oak Grove, Monroe and Pleasant Hill districts into the fold. But the growing pains were just starting, and the next week we will continue with the reminiscences of the first two seasons and the move to Limestone High School, where the Bartonville Little League eventually grew into the present-day, robust Limestone Youth Baseball Program.

The Limestone Youth Baseball program is celebrating its Golden Anniversary this season, which gets underway next Tuesday evening at the Limestone High School athletic complex. The forerunner of the program, which now includes leagues in five age categories, was an inauspicious four-team Little League, originated by Bartonville Grade School Coach Keith Holloway and a handful of dads, as a summer recreation program in 1954.

We mentioned some of the start-up experiences last week, and we’ll add to them this week, along with a look at the first expansion that took the activities out to the high school, where they had room to grow and grow. Holloway, of course, was just thinking Bartonville Grade School when it all started, and that turned out to be a problem before the season ended, because vacations and illnesses and other unexpected situations gave the managers roster headaches. That is why Todd Hattermann an 8-year old at the time, was on the Stone’s Mortuary roster, even though the regulation age category was 10 through 12. It is also the reason that the following season the officers decided to invite kids of Oak Grove, Pleasant Hill and Monroe Grade Schools to participate.

Team managers who stepped up that first year were Howard “Bow-Wow” Lane, “Red” Knox, Bill Kneer and Don Myers. “I had heard some talk that a league for kids might start up,” Meyers says, “and I thought that was something I’d like to get involved in.” Meyers, a Navy veteran, who had played in the Detroit Tigers organization at Dallas in the Texas League and Little Rock in the American Association, was assigned to the Bartonville Bank team. “Bow-Wow” Lane, a former semi-pro pitcher, was another good baseball man, although unpredictable at times. I can picture this incident as plainly as if it were yesterday.

I was umpiring the bases and “Bow-Wow” was in the third base coaching box, when the fire siren went off. Dedicated volunteer fireman that he was, “Bow-Wow” took off across the diamond, behind the pitchers mound, over the little wire fence at the side of the field, into his car and away he went, leaving a bewildered base runner stranded on third without a coach.

The umpiring situation was haphazard the first year, at least for a while. Usually, it was “hey, you, how about calling balls and strikes?” Later in the season, someone asked my brother-in-law, Chic Farrow, to come down and umpire. Chic generously offered to bring me along as his helper, and the “helper” was told to take the plate. The only equipment we had was my old ball and strike indicator. Chic assured me we didn’t need anything else because these were just little kids. Sure. So the first pitch came in high and tight, and the batter foul tipped it just past my ear. I gulped, called time, and borrowed the offensive team’s catcher’s mask. Despite that shaky start, Chic and I got the umpiring situation pretty well under control through the rest of the season, and Winnie Farrow joined our “staff” the following year, along with other occasional volunteers.

The first league champion was Stone’s Mortuary, whose coach was Bill Kneer, widely recognized as “Bartonville’s Milk Man,” because he has a good part of the village on his early-morning delivery route. I mentioned last week how Wayne Stone became the league’s first sponsor. He was also the most visible. “Digger” delighted in rounding up some of the players in his ambulance and transporting them to the field with lights flashing and siren blowing.

The third season was one of many changes. Holloway resigned from the grade school faculty to enter private business, and the Limestone head baseball coach, Fritz Millard, took over as the Little League field director. Winnie Farrow was named president, and a board of directors included a member from each grade school district. Hattermann represented Bartonville, Herb Tenney was from Monroe, Tod Warrington from Pleasant Hill, and Al Guppy from Oak Grove. Their first job was to petition the Limestone High School Board for permission to erect a diamond on the school property. Winnie recalls trying to convince Les Murray and Frank Leach that a baseball field wouldn’t conflict with high school activities, and getting permission to put it “way out there beyond deep center field of the school’s diamond.” “Way out there” was the end of the school property at the time, and it was bounded on the north by acres of corn, where many foul balls were lost forever, despite the efforts of dozens of kids threshing among the rows of cornstalks. That cornfield later became the site of the present-day girls softball diamonds, which are now “way out there.”

Winnie recalls the many hours put in by the officers, directors, managers and volunteers to carve a diamond out of the raw turf, to skin and roll the infield, erect a backstop, build a concession stand, and get everything ready for the start of the 1956 season. Dugouts, a second diamond, and other improvements came along in subsequent seasons, as other groups of parents and volunteers carried on the work of those pioneers, who really weren’t looking 50 years down the line when it all started back in 1954.