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AFL Emails from People Involved with the League
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David Wall:. The Enterprise Boll Weevels relocated to Graceville in 1952, according to your reports.
Before the start of the 1953 season there was a contest to name the Graceville team. My brother, Danny Wall, submitted the name, Oilers. He won a season pass for this winning entry. I was a 11 years old going on 12….and my friends and I sat in the trees in centerfield in a tree house some older boys had built. It was a grand view from there. If we wanted to get in games we chased fowl balls….turn them in and get in the game. I subsequently became the visiting team bat boy for a time. I remember big John Streza. You had to be careful around him….he was gruff and always had a big chew of tobacco going. I was afraid that one big spit in my direction and my mother would forbid me to return to that most enjoyable job. Big John always gave me a used ball after the game and any broken bats. For a time, I had a wide collection of Louisville Sluggers at my house…Mickey Mantle’s, Yogi Berra’s, Eddie Matthews’, Ralph Kiner’s, and others. I would tack and tape them. On some, I would saw off the barrel so that I could get around on them. After you fixed them up they were as good as new for a young boy. I remember some were very heavy with thick handles….others had very skinny handles. I would work on my hitting from my daddy’s pasture over to Mixon Cooper’s pasture. Mixon Cooper was one of the founders and the principle backer of the Graceville team. What a great time to be a boy….the 50’s. There were so many Graceville Oilers that were our heroes. I have forgotten most of their names. They boarded with local folks and how we envied those neighbors. They were just as important to us a Willie Mays was to the Giants. What a great hitter was Chuck Quimby. I also have a Holt Milner souvenir bat to this day. Al Rivenback was one of my all time favorites, with a swing reminiscent of Stan the Man….and I remember Marcus Davis coming to Graceville, sorta like John Wayne coming to town. As I recall, Marcus was a sheriff or something similar up in Alabama. He managed and pitched for the Oilers and was one of my favorites. I was also very fond of Byrd Whigham. He was very athletic and impressive. I recall he was from Louisville, Al. Graceville had two local boys that played for the Oilers. Charlie Grant, per your records played for Donaldsonville and then Graceville. Wilbur « Smiley » Fowler also played for Graceville. Both of the Graceville home boys made it to AAA ball per my recollection before coming back down the line. Smiley Fowler was also the head football coach at Graceville in the 50’s and was very competitive and successful. Of all the big hitters in the AFL, John Streza, Chuck Quimby, Charlie Grant, Neal Cobb and on, I recall Jim Bello as being the man! He could hit ’em over the tall pine trees on the other side of the left field fence. There were also two boys in my 1959 graduation class that hit prodigious home runs in Oiler Park. They both were invited to try out for the Graceville team. Kenneth Davis played around with the Oilers for a time….the other boy, Sonny Balcomb was a one eyed fellow….and a man among boys. He could throw a ball out of Oiler park down the right field line from home plate. He declined to go further in sports due to his concern over his vision. |
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Chuck Stroup: Thank you for such a wonderful and informative site! My father worked for Arthur
D. Walden of the Headland Dixie Runners, and announced for them. He also appeared in the Sporting News. I stumbled across the Death of Ottis Johnson story quite by accident and enjoyed reading the newspaper accounts. My Dad always told the story on the front porch on a hot night, and spoke of the continuing tension that resulted from keeping Jack Clifton pitching. I was in Headland recently and went by the Methodist cemetery, and saw the grave of G.D. (Dink) Halstead, who was the president of the league for a short while. A bit of trivia, if you don’t know already… Headland was listed in Ripley’s Believe It or Not for being the smallest town with a professional baseball team. |
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Lane Harris (former Graceville Oilers batboy): I enjoyed reading the information about the Alabama
Florida League at the website. It brought back a lot of memories, and I have shared some of this information with people of this area. I am a retired band director and have always been a big baseball fan. My father, Sonny Harris, had a sports program on WOOF radio during that time. My Dad would start his morning sports program by saying, « Hi Sportsfans, roll out that Crackbarrel !!….and then he would say « It’s time for Sunny Spots in Sports »! He reported all of the Ala. Fl. league game scores every morning….and was the scorekeeper for Graceville as well as the public address announcer. I took over these duties when I was in the 11th and 12 grades. Baseball was ‘king’ in Graceville, and the whole town thrived on baseball stories year round. I grew up in Graceville during this time, and delivered newspapers to all of the members of the Graceville Oilers….. (they usually took The Montgomery Advertiser because of it’s excellent sports reporting). As batboy for 2 years, I also travelled with them on road trips (in station wagons). I looked forward to the games in Panama City against the Fliers….because they would always eat at the Tally Ho…and the hamburgers there were GREAT! I just wanted to send you a note to compliment you on your work with the Alabama Florida League site. It looks GREAT!! I know that all of the players and fans of that period in our baseball history certainly appreciate your efforts. They may not say it to you personally, but they do. I am saying it to you by way of e-mail. Thanks for keeping this baseball history alive on the internet. |
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Wayne Stutts: I stumbled across this website and was trully amazed. I umpired in the Alabama-Florida
League for the 1960 season. My partner was Don Denkinger who of course went on to umpire in the American League for many years. I have many fond memories of my time in the league. We were in Montgomery when Martin Luther King was being tried for intergrating the buses, and the Alabama govenor’s race was in full swing. J.C. Dunn was managing Panama City that year. |
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Bill Dick: I was one of the batboys/ball boys for the 1954 Andalusia/Opp team. They only
played in Opp for the one season. Austin (Buck) Mcdonald was on this team and one of the 1954 all-stars. He later was my high school baseball coach. It was a great time for a thirteen year old. I have a ball pitched by Virgil Trucks for a strikeout record in 37 given to me by my grandfather. It has the entire season of strikeouts on it and certified by the official scorer for Andalusia. I will try to get you you a picture of Channell- Lee stadium where the games were played in Opp. By the way, I saw Willie Mays play in Andalusia with the old Birmingham Black Barons. No doubt, he was something special even then. |
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Scott Griffith: I spent a lot of time at Admiral Mason Park when I was a boy growing up in
Pensacola. My father, the late Don Griffith, was a Pensacola broadcaster for fifty years. He was the voice of the Dons, Angels, and Senators. Many times I watched my dad « recreate » baseball games the Don’s played on the road. He did road games from the WCOA studio which was located in the PNJ building downtown. A guy sitting at a teletype machine in the press box in Panama City, or Dothan, or Montgomery, etc., would type a pitch-by-pitch description of the game. My father, from the studio downtown would pull the wire copy and embellish the typed description with his own banter adding sound effects such as the bat hitting the ball or the catcher’s mitt. He’d add crowd noise and turn it up for home runs and other big plays. Anyone listening to the game in Pensacola would swear it was originating from location. But, of course, it was not. Don Griffith was an incredible talent and very well known in the Pensacola area for his live baseball play by play as well as high school football and Pensacola Navy Goshawk football PBP. During one year of Goshawk football a Heisman Trophy winner from the Naval Academy, Roger Staubach, was the team’s quarterback. If I’m not mistaken, it was the only season in which the Goshawks went undefeated. During the late 50’s and early 60’s I’d go with him to almost every game at Admiral Mason. When I was about 12 I made extra money selling cokes and popcorn in the stands. Needless to say, I have very fond memories of those days. I’ve been a Mobile, Alabama broadcaster for almost thirty years now and everything I know about sports play by play I learned from Don Griffith. |