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10. 1960s

Jim West became U.Va.s head baseball coach in 1962, a position he would hold through 1980. The University continued to play its home games at old Lambeth Field. Mike Cubbage starred at Lane High School in the late 1960s and was poised to do the same as a shortstop with U.Va.

In 1963, Charlottesville’s American Legion team lost the state title on an umpire’s controversial interference call. And in 1966 Judge George Coles, Steve Stebo, and Frank Neofotis organized the Babe Ruth League for 13-15 year olds, a league that flourishes to this day.

The Charlottesville Hornets, organized by Wilson Cropp, Carl Deane, and Kenny Beale, became part of the semi-pro Valley League. They were called the “Hornets” because their uniforms came from a team with that name in Charlotte, North Carolina. Among the local men who later played on the team were Mike Wolfrey, Mike Cubbage, and Sammy Beale. Coached by Jim West, the Hornets played on a field behind Burley H.S. that had been fenced in by townspeople.

Earlier in the decade, when West was coaching the Shenandoah team of the Valley League, a local black pitcher on his staff integrated the League, not always to enthusiastic audiences.

“In the 1960s, I coached the ‘Braves’, sponsored by J.F. Bell Funeral Home, in the Jackie Robinson League. There were four teams in the league. Robert Wicks coached the ‘Indians’. They were sponsored by the Night and Day Market on Preston Avenue. The Elks sponsored the ‘Yankees’ coached by William Jackson. The other team was the ‘Cubs’. I’m very proud to have coached men like Frankie Allen, a former Virginia Tech coach, Garwin DeBerry, the football coach at Charlottesville High School, Dr. Benegal Page, Charles Alexander (now known as Alex Zan), and Alphonso Dudley. In the 1960s the Sunday League was for the ‘old guys’. The ‘Squeeze-Ins’ was the only Charlottesville team in the league. We were a social and an athletic club and were community-oriented. The club raised money for charities. Other teams in the Sunday League were Covesville, North Garden, South Garden, Wilmingdon (near Palmyra) Avon, Orange, and the Barboursville Giants. The managers worked out the schedule early each summer.”—Rev. John T. Spears

“I grew up on Calhoun Street just off of Locust Avenue. At the time there was a large vacant field across the street from us. Kids seem to be drawn to vacant fields with baseball bats and gloves and that’s what happened to our vacant field and of course this was mainly a male pursuit. It was mostly boys who were drawn to that field, but I was and am very athletic and I wanted to play. My sister was athletic too and there were just the two of us in our family. My father had been athletic so and it didn’t bother him that we were girls. He gave us bats and balls and gloves and we learned to play. So we just naturally sort of bopped over across the street and insinuated ourselves into these games. I’m not entirely sure the guys were thrilled with this, but since we lived across the street they couldn’t very well throw us off the field and they grudgingly let us play. I was about 10 years old…. Once we showed up the first couple of times they just gave up. And also we proved that we could play. Being girls ceased to be an issue. We played there for just a couple of years. There was a man who also lived across the street, a retired farmer, he had his eye on this field. I don’t think he was too thrilled with us playing on this field. It didn’t belong to him. He sort of had charge of it though. Eventually he took matters into his own hands and plowed up the field and planted it. So, we couldn’t play there any more and that was the end of Calhoun Street baseball.”—Sandy DeKay