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12. 1980s

Dennis Womack became head coach of the Cavaliers in 1982, leading UVa to a first-place finish in the ACC in 1985. More and more players were selected in the Major League draft, a pace that accelerated further in the 1990s.

Semi-pro teams, long absent from the region, return in 1985 with the formation of the Virginia Baseball League. The five-team league was organized by Fred Payne and Virginia and Barry McClain of Charlottesville, along with Mike Zitz of Fredericksburg. This year (2000) Charlottesville has two teams in the league; the Blues, one of the original teams, and the Cardinals formed in 1987.

Jackie Jensen, one of the American League’s leading sluggers in the 1950s, who had operated a baseball camp at Fork Union Academy, died suddenly in 1982. He and his wife operated a tree farm in Fluvanna county, and had made many friends in the area.

“Quite a few of the guys if they had the opportunity then that they would have now would have made the major leagues. But we didn’t have the opportunity. I used to be one of the best pitchers around. You didn’t have people come in and look at you. On July the fourth one time I pitched a ball game for Chestnut Grove on Old Lynchburg Road with Crozet. Went over to Crozet that morning and shut Crozet out and then turned around and came back and pitched for the South Garden Tigers, which team I played with, against Chestnut Grove, the team that I played for that morning, and shut them out in the same day.”—William Johnson