my dad was an all-star 50 years ago

great story for those who love small-town baseball, history, and can remember a time when baseball was the only sport kids ever played. my dad was an all-star catcher on the original team back in 1956. he's at the bottom-left of the attached photo. this story just ran in the ft. myers news-press.


On a damp May evening in 1956, a 12-year-old boy named Tim Lewis took the mound for the Indians in a Little League game at Lions Park on two-lane Cleveland Avenue. Walter Grace, 12, batted for the Braves. It was a Thursday. The date was May 10.

Hundreds of people, moms and dads, brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors, crammed into bleachers. The News-Press sports editor was at the game. Tim and Walter wore spanking new uniforms. There were no left-over uniforms in 1956.

This was the first Little League game ever played in Southwest Florida. The Indians and Braves were two of four charter teams in the Fort Myers Little League.

"None of us had ever done anything like that," Lewis said recently. "Everybody was nervous."

Those boys are now in their 60s. On Saturday, the league celebrated the kickoff to its 50th season. The event was held at Sam Fleishman Regional Park, named after the man who managed the 1956 Indians and was a league founder.

Grace, now an attorney, struck out in that first at-bat. The Indians won 3-2.

"There wasn't much going on in Fort Myers at the time," Grace said. "We had a brand new TV station. That was about it. It seemed like half the town was there."

Tim Lewis is now a grandfather and retired Allstate Insurance agent. His son, Kevin, played in the league and now coaches in the same league. Kevin's two sons play in the same league.

Back then, when Tim was a boy, it was called simply Fort Myers Little League. Now it's Fort Myers American Little League, to distinguish it from all the descendent leagues that have followed — South Fort Myers, Dunbar, Cape Coral American, Lehigh Acres, San Carlos and many others.

"This is special because it was the first one," Kevin Lewis said. "This is where it all started in Fort Myers."

Long before an explosion in youth soccer and Pop Warner and youth basketball and cheerleading and softball, there was Fort Myers Little League.

Lee County's population was then around 40,000. The county's population has now zoomed past 500,000.

Back then, there was one television channel, WINK, available in Southwest Florida. Schools were segregated. No bridge had been built to Sanibel Island. There was no Edison Mall. No Internet. No DVDs or CDs or iPods or HBO.

But there were RBI. ...

"We didn't have anything when we got out of school," Lewis said. "All we did was play ball. That's it. Even before we had Little League."

IN THE BEGINNING

Half a century ago they were important men in Fort Myers, maybe even the Three Wise Men. Chuck Ross was an energetic refugee from Brooklyn who owned the Arcade Cigar Store in downtown Fort Myers. Dr. James Bradley was a surgeon. Sam Fleishman was a wholesale grocer.

They met one day in Ross' store to discuss youth sports. Bradley and Fleishman had seen kids bickering on a ball field during a pickup game.

"We decided to do something about it," Fleishman told The News-Press in 1974.

That something led to Tim Lewis pitching to Walter Grace on that May afternoon. That something led to a charter from Little League. That something is still flourishing.

Back then, it was a novelty, something magical for the boys in the league. This was before Little League allowed girls to play baseball and before it started softball leagues. It was a boys' only program.

The main thing for the lucky boys involved was a chance to don a uniform and play in organized games.

"I thought it was fabulous," said Fort Myers resident David Ward, then an 11-year-old Indians second baseman and now an Air Force retiree.

Now, dozens if not hundreds of organized youth sports events are held virtually every day throughout Southwest Florida.

Not in 1956. It was so special that the four teams dressed up in their new uniforms and paraded along First Street in downtown in a kickoff parade.

"If you want to call it a parade," Tim Lewis said.

The league founders are all gone. Ann Bradley, the widow of Dr. Bradley, assembled a scrap book of the 1956 season. She's saved it all these years. In the yellowed newspaper clippings the historical record has been preserved.

The costs for equipment and uniforms that year were shared by local businesses and individuals. Team sponsors were Braden-Suthphin Farms, Al's Super Market, the Lion's Club and the Rotary Club. Marshall Anderson of Dandee Bread donated $400 for caps and T-shirts for minor-leaguers.

The News-Press sports editor Len Harsh mentioned in a column that "Mr. and Mrs. Morris Epstein of Jersey City, N.J.," donated $10 for their grandson, Chip Naughton, one of the pioneer local players. Harsh also pointed out that McCrory clerks donated $10 and Foremost Dairies donated 100 cups of ice cream.

Some details survive in only memories, like that Walter Grace has of umpire Jock Sutherland, who was also the football coach at Fort Myers High.

"I remember Jock Sutherland would whittle on a stick and call balls and strikes," Grace said.

Grace, 60, recalls that 1956 was the first time he played night games.

The best player in the league may have been Richard Nipper, who hit .593 and led the league in runs, doubles, homers, RBI and stolen bases.

"He was the superstar of the league," Ward said.

Grace remembers Nipper smashing two homers that landed in the middle of U.S. 41.

"Physically, way ahead of the rest of us," Grace said.

Tim Lewis wasn't bad, either.

"I remember he could throw hard and he could throw strikes," Grace said. "No breaking balls. I was over-matched as a hitter that year."

Virtually everything was chronicled in the pages of The News-Press. Lewis' pitching exploits. Nipper's homers. All the scores.

Roger Bradley, 54, was too young to play that first season. He was a bat boy, hanging out with the big kids while dad was league president and mom was helping with the concession stand and keeping a scrap book.

In 1957, the league moved into a new home, then called Boys Field. That field is located on what is now the campus of Fort Myers High School.

"I can remember my father with his delicate surgical hands driving a bulldozer over there clearing the limestone rock and stuff when they were trying to build that field," Bradley said.

Dr. Bradley and all the rest built something that has lasted nearly half a century and may last for who knows how long.

 

Thanks for sharing this Larry. It has brought back my own memories that I will post later.

I wonder if NCBBallfan was one of the founding players of Little League

 

That was after my time.... Now, if you want to talk about Nap Lajoie, that's another matter.

 

Yeah Braves -- I'lll bet you played against Larry D's dad, huh?

Actually, no -- it looks like you coached that team! Or else that Grace kid pinch hit for you.

"On a damp May evening in 1956, a 12-year-old boy named Tim Lewis took the mound for the Indians in a Little League game at Lions Park on two-lane Cleveland Avenue. Walter Grace, 12, batted for the Braves."

 

i thought you'd like it.