By JOE HOLTZAPFEL
In 1938, a man by the name of Carl Stotz started what would later be a World Wide baseball program. I'm sure he didn't know what he started would become such a sensation all over the world. I met Mr. Stotz back in the early 80's. The program he started was soon taken over by others and they pretty much rid themselves of a good man. That in itself is a story that can't be told in a few paragraphs and I won't even begin to try.
I've always wanted to write an article about my time involved with Little League but I didn't realize just how much print that would require. So I'll condense it down somewhat.
When I got started in Little League there were only two fields and two leagues, Little League and Senior League. Little League was composed of 6 teams and Senior League 5 teams.
For two years, I watched the tryouts and saw there were about 190 kids trying out for 30 spots on team rosters. What didn't get picked were sent back to the Ironton Recreation Department. I told a friend of mine what was going on and he agreed that the league needed to expand.
As time went on, my friend came back and told me he had attended a meeting of the Little League and they had decided to expand to two more teams. I told him it was about time and that more kids would get to play in a great program. My friend, who by the way was Tommy Tipton, owner of a bakery and supermarket here in town, informed me he was going to sponsor one of the teams. That is also when he told me he turned in my name as his manager. I had coached and managed in T-ball, Midget League and Intermediate League in the Recreation Department before but never in Little League.
Being a new coach I came to the league with new ideas. Not that I thought I could change the world but I saw things that needed changed and I would bring these up at meetings. Most of the time I was out voted 11 to 1. At no time did I not have the kids best interest at heart.
To make a long story short, things began to change for the better. I scouted the Little Men T-ball League and had an index card on all the kids in the league. I had to draft 15 players to start my expansion team and I wanted to give all kids a fair shot. I scored all 190 kids at tryouts on ability and nothing else. When we had the draft I always took the next player up on my list regardless of gender or skin color.
The league never had much representation at the District 11 meetings, so I kind of took it upon myself to start attending the meetings in place of the president of the league. The Ironton Little League never had not even a district tournament assigned to them due to the fact the district administrator always gave the tournaments to leagues in Scioto County. Lawrence County teams always had to travel there to play their tournament games.
At one district meeting held to see who would get a tournament, Ironton and Lucasville bid on the Little League tournament. The DA flipped a coin to see who would get the tournament. He flipped it behind a deck so only he could see the results. I called tails and he thought Lucasville had called tails and he said Lucasville got the tournament. The president of the Lucasville Little League informed the DA that Ironton had called tails and we had just won our first tournament.
After that year we got a new DA and things changed for the better. He started having tournaments in all of the leagues regardless of the county.
The year end tournaments are going to be starting soon and I will post the All Stars from each league. Just as soon as I get the selections I will post them on here.
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