PHOTO COURTESY OF BOB SWISHER Billed as one of the best in western Kentucky, Marion’s 1909 baseball team included (back row, from left) P. Guess, B. Perryman, Paul Gossage, Gray Rochester, Chas Monroe, Claude Guess, Guy Lamb, (front row) G. Dixon, Cup Cannon, Franklin, W. Lamb and Davidson. Due to incomplete information, only a portion of some players’ names are listed.

PHOTO COURTESY OF BOB SWISHER Marion's city baseball team, an independent squad, for the years 1935-37 included (back row, from left) Paul Rushing, Brad Wheeler, Trusty Travis, Louie Perryman, Floyd "Rip" Wheeler, Clinton Easley, an unidentified player, (front row) Robert "Pig" Swisher, Buster Whitt and Dal Travis. The bat boys are Bobby Roy Swisher and Bob Wheeler.

PHOTO COURTESY OF BOB SWISHER Robert "Pig" Swisher (back row, far left) of Marion was a good enough player to be invited to a Major League tryout camp, but ended up behind the plate as an umpire in the Kitty League. Swisher attended the Steamboat Johnson umpire school in Kissimmee, Fla., where he finished with the highest grades in the class in 1950.

Click here to send us your photos and/or stories.

Prior to World War II there were two brothers, Will Dave and Virgil Drennan from the Cave Springs community, that were arguably as good a battery that ever played the game in Crittenden County. They were so dominating that if Will Dave started the game and tired in the late innings, he would simply swap his glove for Virgil’s catcher’s mitt and continue the game as the catcher with Virgil doing the relief pitching. Opposing batters couldn’t tell the difference, as both Drennan brothers were equally fast and dominating from the mound.

Louie and Dago Perryman were one of the best brother combinations ever to play in Marion. Louie was primarily an infielder, but could and would play anywhere. In the late 1940s, he managed the Marion Independents — also known as the Red Sox of the Twin States League. Dago played some professional ball in the old Texas League, and while with Texarkana one day decided to attempt to play a different position each of the nine innings… and accomplished the unusual feat which to this time had never been done in organized baseball — Major or Minor leagues.

Baseball was at its peak in the late 40s in Marion and some of those ball players who performed at Ross Crain’s race track ballfield off U.S. 60 East are still around today and can still perform, but only in the hot stove league. Offseason in the neighborhood social center — the local grocery or feed mill — the men would gather around and along with events and farming would talk baseball form the World Series until spring. Some of the more familiar places were Coleman Feed Store, Nelson’s Feed Store and Livery Stable and Crit Hoppers John Deere Store, as well as Seth Ferguson’s Store in Crayne, Leslie Hobbs and Rudell Jacob’s stores in Tolu and, of course, the Dycusburg store.

Some of the other locals who played the game were Charles “Hoagy” Gass, Bill Tabor, Wendel Wright, Joe Tabor, “Snout” Tabor, Mose Johnson, Rip Wheeler, Runt Johnson, football coach Johnny Carlisle and a great right-handed fastballer, the Marion meal ticket, Roy Conyer for the Mattoon community. Roy, along with his brother, the classy left-handed, curveball Charlie, dominated western Kentucky pitching and kept the Marion team competitive with Jewel Patterson’s Princeton team and teams from Paducah, Grand Rivers, Smithland and Ledbetter.

Mose Johnson, a solid, huge first baseman, impressed everyone with his strength the day of the Smithland game fight (click to see newspaper story on the game). Just as his brother Runt was going after an opponent with a bat, Mose grabbed the swinging bat with one hand and not only stopped Runt from hurting anyone but the momentum change of the bat caused Runt to flip upside down himself. That ended the fight for him that fateful day.

Marion also contributed umpire color to the game in western Kentucky. Hawk Oliver umpired many a game played at the field on Sid Johnson Airport, two miles south of Marion on U.S. 641. Hawk, quite the character, was never wrong on a ball and was a self-styled expert in all matters of baseball. Later, from Union County came Jim Fred Mills who umpired Little League, Pony League and Babe Ruth League play primarily at the Grady Field playing grounds.

Floyd “Rip” Wheeler pitched primarily for Marion High School and other teams in the Hopkins-Webster Coal Mine League where it is presumed he was seen by a Pittsburgh official. (The Pirates had three years of spring training in Dawson Springs during the 1910s.) The Pirates signed Rip out of high school in 1921, and he reported to Wichita Falls, Texas almost immediately. He was called up to the big club, the Pirates of the National League, where he toiled on the mound for two years. He was later picked up by the Chicago Cubs where he performed two more years. Rip was respected as an iron man-type pitcher, having pitched both ends of several double headers. Young Rip, who played for Marion in the Twin States League, was signed by a representative of AA Texas League Fort Worth where he played two games before the World War II draft ended his baseball career.

Capsule moments on other Marion baseball players:

• Bill Tabor played for Clarksville, Tenn.’s Kitty League team and ran a baseball school in Minnesota for more than 20 years.
• Don Easley was signed by the Tigers but was injured in spring training. He came back the next year with the Pirates before injuries halted his professional career. Later, in the U.S. Army, Don played for the Fort Knox Tankers, winning the second Army Tournament where he led the team in stolen bases. That team was loaded with professional players doing their required military duty. Don was arguably one of the best left-handed hitters to play here, always hitting near .400. He played in the Twin States League with Fredonia and Crider and had many long classic match-ups against Tom Loyd of Salem.
• Donnie McMican played here in Marion during the summer of the 1950s, as he was regularly a student in the Detroit area where he was noted as the best infielder as a high school shortstop in the metropolitan area.
• W.A. Franklin was a most-dependable third baseman and was the only player from Marion in memory that could regularly hit Johnny “Red” Reagan by anticipating the fastball on every pitch.
• Gordon Guess played most of his baseball in Columbia, Tenn., as a high school first baseman. After a very successful tryout camp in Paducah, Guess declined a St. Louis Cardinal Class B contract in order to finish his education at Vanderbilt University. Guess played for Crider and Fredonia and hit over .350 regularly. He went into the Army and played for the Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota, who had taken a spot in the pro/am Basin League (Class D equivalent that included the likes of Frank Howard, Bob Gibson, Jim Palmer, Jim O'Toole and Johnny Edwards). Guess was Ellsworth’s regular third baseman on a team with a host of professionals and hit a respectable .286 while performing Army duties in a missile unit.
• Jerry Wheeler of Marion was a right-handed fastballer for Crittenden County High School and after school signed with the Cincinnati Reds organization where he advanced as a relief pitcher up to the AAA Indianapolis Indians of the International League.
• Marion’s American Legion team were very competitive in the western Kentucky baseball season for many years, playing the Paducah Little Chiefs regularly and facing players such as the Haas boys, the Roofs and Charlie Loyd and Bob Taylor of Metropolis, Ill. One of Bob’s favorite memories of playing Marion is one day in Marion when he was having a particularly good day at the plate. As a catcher, he was involved in a routine tag play at home plate and the “home” umpire, whomever he was, used that as an opportunity to get Taylor out of the game to limit the damage he had been inflicting on the hometown boys. The umpire called the runner safe and threw Taylor out for “unnecessary roughness” — a 15-yard penalty in football. Marion came back form behind to win that game against the Little Chiefs.
• In the 1950s, out of the county came a young left-hander with arguably the best combination of speed and control a pitcher from here ever possessed. This was Lefty Bridwell who had an almost perfect high school record. He went on to Murray State where he sat school and Ohio Valley Conference records for strikeouts and ERA that have yet to be challenged. A career 0.63 ERA in conference play earned him a pro contract with the Washington Senators’ AA farm team where he successfully pitched — including a one-hitter — until he walked away from the game to pursue a higher education, earning a Ph.D. in computer science. As a youngster of Pony League age, the old-timer fans would toss quarters on first base as an incentive for him to get a hit when at bat. Every time after he hit the ball, he would with minimum hesitation lean down and pick up the quarter on his way to second base or more.
• Since 1950, several players from the area excelled both at home on nearby team. Jesse Bennett, a catcher from Sheridan, worked behind the plate admirably at Fredonia for three years. Jim Alderdice, a second baseman with Burna, went on to play with the David Lipscomb University Bisons in Nashville. Jim Guess caught at Marion High School, the University of Kentucky and at Kentucky Wesleyan. Jim’s brother, Foster Allen, pitched at Fredonia and Cedar Grove before the U.S. Army got him. Tom Frazer played outfield and was a team hitting leading for Cedar Grove. Don “Buck” Travis, an outfielder and pitcher with a fastball and knuckler, had three good years for Fredonia. Buck, a left-handed hitter, practically owned right field at Grady Field as the large oak trees there gobbled up and turned many a pop fly into doubles. Gerald “Hooby” Tabor, following in the tradition of the very athletic Tabor family, had a very successful career playing outfield and first base and pitching for the UT Martin and Murray State. Hooby pitched for Salem in the Twin States League and possessed an extremely effective sinker he learned from Fred Clayton, Marion’s football coach who also pitched for Salem.
• One of the latest outstanding ball players to come through was Denis Hodge, the former coach of the Crittenden County High School Rockets. Denis was a very versatile player but settled in mostly at shortstop and second base, where he excelled. After high school, he played ball at Southeastern Illinois Junior College in Harrisburg for two years, earning a scholarship to Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond. He started at second base there until graduation. Denis excelled in conference tournament play but after a stint as an officer in the U.S. Army, he returned home to coach the Rockets.

Marion baseball has always been competitive with teams from Caldwell, Union, Livingston, McCracken and Hopkins counties and even Henderson County, with much of the credit to the adults and coaches over the years. Tony O’Neal labored many years teaching hitting. Joe Henderson, Gordon Guess, Mickey Myers and Dave Hunt shared their immense baseball knowledge with Junior Babe Ruth and Pony League-age boys for more than 10 years.

Marion’s baseball heritage is a proud one is alive and well. Support it!