CUTLINES: Billy Young, right, recently gave Troy resident Joanne Ross, left, the bat used by her father more than 70 years ago on an adult baseball team in Shady Grove in the 1940s. (Josh Boutwell)

 

After more than 75 years, a baseball bat her father used in the 1940s made its way back to Joanne (Ingram) Ross recently, bringing a flood of memories along with it. 

The old bat was used by locals of an adult baseball team in the 1940s in the Shady Grove community of Pike County. Lifelong Pike County resident William “Billy” Young recalls first seeing the bat in use as a young child in Shady Grove.

“About maybe 1941 or 1942 I was old enough to realize that this was strictly country out here and the men of the community had a baseball team,” Young recalled. “They didn’t have much equipment and played in their overalls. The first baseball field I can remember was across the railroad tracks.

“I remember walking up that railroad track and asking, ‘Where are we going?” We were going to the baseball field. It was about a quarter mile up the railroad track and there was no road to it. You had to go up the tracks to get to it. It was just a pasture, they tried to find the most level place they could find and it still wasn’t exactly level.” 

Young said that the bases for the field were made out of “croker sacks” filled with dirt and a piece of plywood acted as home plate. There was no pitcher’s mound, no backstop and no fence. 

“There were trees all around,” he remembered. “When a ball was fouled off one of us young boys had to run in the woods and find it. If you lost a couple of balls the game was over.” 

Young fondly remembered those games, which he said amazed him as a child.

“I was so young and it was just amazing,” he said with a smile. “There were some good ball players, too. There was one tall, skinny fellow named Carl Henry Wilkerson. He could really throw it and hit it. It was all you had to do around here. If there was a ballgame on Saturday, everyone would go to the ballgame.” 

Another player that Young recalled was one Emmitt Ingram, Ross’ father.

“Her daddy is one I can remember using that bat,” Young said pointing to the old bat. “He was a big, strong, healthy man. Boy, he could swing it.”

Young said over time players kept breaking the bats. So, a local worker at a sawmill took a “Peavy handle” – used to move large logs – and took off its hook and trimmed it down into a bat. That bat is what still survives to this day. 

Like many children in the community, Young would go on to eventually play in those games, which eventually moved to a more level pasture down the road from his home and eventually to Shellhorne School.

Years later, Young would go on to play high school baseball at Troy High School and eventually at Troy University. 

“After I finished (high school), I started at Troy State Teachers’ College and I said to myself, I love baseball and they have a team,” Young remembered. “All of those fellows – most of the team – had been in military service and they were 4-5 years older than me. That’s what the team was made up of but I made the team as a freshman. It was the happiest day of my life.”

Young played alongside Bill Hixon at Troy. That name is likely a very familiar one for Troy residents as the Hixons have a long history with baseball in the city. Rush Hixon went on to play baseball at Troy, as well, and too many Hixons to count have gone on to play and coach baseball in Troy. Rush and Ross Hixon’s grandmother – on their mother’s side – is Joanne Ross. 

Throughout the years, the equipment that was used in those old games played in Shady Grove were kept under the counter of Young’s father’s local store. The bat was the only piece of equipment that survived, many decades after the games stopped.

“That bat stayed at the store for years,” said Young. “When daddy closed the store, I brought it up here and put it in the living room by the fireplace. It sat there all this time until now.” 

Ross, who grew up with a love of baseball, asked Young if she could have the bat.

“I have a pretty long history with baseball in my past and hopefully my future,” Ross said. “There’s a lot of history in my family with baseball and there’s history with that bat. I just thought it would mean a lot to my family. It just brings back a lot of memories and thinking about all the children (my father) had but he was still able to make time to play the sport he loved so much. I think that love has carried over to me and the rest of my family.” 

Young had grown sentimentally attached to the bat over all these years himself but after thinking about it, decided to let Ross have it. Now, the bat lives with the family of one of those players who swung it all those years ago.