The bat boys of Brownfield
In my last column, I interviewed Coal Baron ball player John Burns of Buffington. I had asked John if he knew who the bat boy was in a 1948 photo.
Since then, I located one. Tom Roche and his friends in Brownfield played at the Coal Baron Baseball team clubhouse in the late 1940s.
“The club house was on top of the grand stands of the old wooden speedway,” he reminisced. “We were around 12 or 13, and one of the guys, Sparky Robatin, got to be the Coal Baron Bat Boy. They dressed him in a little gray uniform with the number one-half on the back. He was not very big, maybe 3-foot tall. He lived in House 13 in the patch.
“We used to run across the field. It was about three-quarters of a mile from Brownfield. Every night they had a game we would try to get back home before the ball field lights went out. It was really dark without them,” he said laughing. “We made it a couple times, and it was a ways. We ran halfway around the old track, then past a target shooting club, up a path and across both railroad tracks.
“We hung out there all the time. It was a treat to be in the dugout with the players. Bill Hudacsek was my favorite. He was a right fielder that batted to the left side. He lived in Uniontown on Fayette Street across from the Red Head service station. The players would give us broken bats. We nailed them back together. That’s how we got all of our baseballs those years, too. When they shagged balls during batting practice, there would be 10 or 15 boys there. They never threw anyone out. They left us stay there once we were in the ballpark. I didn’t pay one time to get in on game days.”
When I asked why they were allowed in the clubhouse and dugout, he said, “It started with us going under the bleachers looking for pennies and nickels. Then we sold hot dogs and Tru Aid for Harry Isabel’s concession there. Sparky was the home team bat boy and mascot, but the visiting teams never brought one, so about half a dozen of us got to be bat boy numerous times each.”
“The first year, 1947, they held an essay-writing contest, ‘Why I want to be the Coal Baron Bat Boy’. Joe Griton won and did it that whole season. The last two years Sparky did it.”
“It was free to get into the games after the seventh inning,” Bill Scott added. “After the coal mining team of Isabella beat the Coal Barons, they could not raise the money to play the 1950 season. Addison bought the uniforms they had already ordered. They just blocked out the Uniontown name and wore them. That Isabella was a tough team. The good players would get the day off from the mines if there was a game.”
Players on the 1948 Coal Baron ball team included: Hudacsek, Albert William Rolke, Robert Williams, William Alfred Mongiello (Manager), John Joseph Higgins, William McKee, Daniel Patrick Costello, Donald George Runcie, Ezio Bonetti, Calvin Hogue, Anthony Arthur Seqzda, George Joseph Hallow, Robert James Lilko, Marion Lamar Dorton, Lewis John Fisher (Farmington), and Jack Edward Bumgarner. Bumgarner is the brother of actor, James Garner.
At the end of this interview, Hopwood’s Bill Scott, who is in the Fayette County Sports Hall of Fame himself for playing ball, handed me a small photograph from a 1909 newspaper. It seems there was a Coal Baron Ball Team in Uniontown back then. They were the champions of the Pennsylvania-West Virginia League. The players are: McAleese, Phillips, Rudolph, Cariss, Roberts, Cowan, Carnes, Fletcher, Hilley, Wilson, McCloskey, Gribben, Miller, Wallace and Gibson as Mascot.
When I asked if he played ball, Tom said, “Yes, in the midgets, Pete Yezback, one of the Coal Baron Ball Team owners, I played for him. We played down Bailey Park.”
Roche smiled thinking about his youth, “We were around some heroes those years, us kids, and we never wanted for a bat or ball”.
Marci McGuinness is the author of 28 books, many on local history and legends. She is presently writing Murder in the Vineyard. To be interviewed for this column, contact her at: 724 710-2821, shorepublications@yahoo.com or www.uniontownspeedway.com.