HISTORICAL MOMENTS BY GEORGE CHEVALLIER

LITTLE LEAGUE IN THE 1950’S



(The KC-Knights of Columbus-cap on the left is from 1956.

The R-Rotary-cap on the right is a Little Minor League cap from 1954)

When Little League came to Salisbury in the 1950’s, the entire atmosphere of baseball was much different than it is today. The Major League stars were protected by a code of ethics practiced by the press that never manifested the players’ frailties or human weaknesses. We thought of players such as Mantle, Mays, Aaron and Musial as “the baseball gods” and never heard any adverse news about them or their private lives.

So, to be a baseball player meant that you had to follow the rules and “act right”. There were only four Little League teams in Salisbury until 1955 and these were financed and sponsored by the Lions, the Rotary, the Exchange Club and the Moose. To make a team bestowed on you a certain air of greatness. The players wore their coveted team hat day and night so that everybody knew you were a ball player. Tryouts were a simple process of a one day tryout just as they are today. The big difference was the process of announcing who made which team. The selections were published in The Salisbury Times and nothing was more eagerly anticipated by the youth of Salisbury than this announcement - in print no less. The disappointment of those not selected was certainly a blow to their ego, but like every other disappointment in those days, they “got over it”. A lot of them made the “minors”. The four original teams each had a minor league team until 1955 and the players got a hat and T-shirt. This took up the summer for 120 boys and that was pretty much every boy in Salisbury that wanted to play baseball. In 1955 another Little League was formed with teams sponsored by the Knights of Columbus, the B’nai Brith, the Elks and the Odd Fellows.

To wear the uniform meant you were a baseball player and everybody gave you the respect that was due such a lofty status. Any kid in America would have given his right arm (after the season) and played for nothing to have the opportunity to play in the Big Leagues. No one from Salisbury ever made it to “the show”, but that didn’t stop us from imagining that the Little League Field in City Park wasn’t Yankee Stadium. Or that we weren’t playing in the seventh game of the World Series every time we took the field.

In simpler times, before all the distractions available to kids today, Little League baseball was the only game in town during those long, lazy days of summer.