It is spring and soon the crack of bats, the loud voices of the coaches, (some might call it yelling), the call of “hey batteeeer!”, and the cheers of the parents will fill the air as Little League once again returns to the Green Street fields. It is a spring time ritual that comes with the warmer air and sitting outside around the firepit. We were asked by parents in this year’s Little League what year did the Port Byron League begin? This led to some pleasant conversations with many of the men and women who were involved with the early years of Little League baseball.

Wikipedia tells us that Carl Stotz founded a three team league in Williamsport, Pennsylvania in 1939. The league was formally incorporated in 1950. The first teams in Cayuga County were organized by the YMCA in 1951, and was mostly a Auburn city league. The first sponsors were Red Star, William Bouley, Van’s Bakery, and the Emerson Foundation. With the city teams set, the YMCA reached out to the smaller villages to see if local teams could be organized. Thus we see that Robert Griffith was appearing before Port Byron parents in early 1952 to encourage the formation of a local league. To help convince parents, Dana West, who was the director of the summer recreation program, showed movies about Little League baseball. By the end of the month, the group had organized and elected it’s first officers. They were; President Harry Taylor, VP Mrs. Piccano (for you younger folks reading this, there was a period in our history when women did not have first names), Secretary Anthony Debottis, Treasurer Mrs. Richard France, Commissioner Kenneth Tripp, Team Manager Dana West, and the umpires were Richard Applebee, Charles Rooker, and Harold Kincaid.

The first games of the “newly organized baseball circuit” which was named the Northern Cayuga League, were June 2, 1952. The other teams were Cayuga, Union Springs, Weedsport. Montezuma joined the circuit in 1956. For the children who couldn’t get on the Little League teams, the Port Byron village youth recreation program began a farm team league. This local league consisted of four separate teams of kids aged between 8 and 12, who were divided up according to their abilities. In addition to playing between themselves, the farm teams would play other farm teams from the other Northern league teams.

In one of my interviews, I was told about a young lady named Terry Ostrander, who it was said was better then most of the boys and was allowed to play Little League. I reached out to Terry and she told me that she only played on one of the farm teams in the 1955 or 56 season which was named the Giants. She noted that she wasn’t allowed to play on the Little League teams. In my searching about young ladies playing in Little League, I learned that this may have been due to the “Tubby Rule” where a young lady named Kay Johnston played during the 1950 season as a boy named Tubby Johnston. When she was found out, the League officials came up with a regulation that no girls should ever play Little League. Whether this was a factor in keeping Terry on the farm teams is a question for history. Terry was quite the multi-talented ball player, with her main role as as the pitcher, but also playing first base, shortstop, and one time as catcher. Others such as Charles Gregory and Patty Brazak noted her great talent and said she was one of the best.

Dick France Jr, whose father was one of the league organizers, played on the first teams. He said that all the games were played on the Green Street fields, which were the school fields. His father and others would set up snow fencing to mark out the boundaries. He said that the playoffs would pit all the country teams against one another and then the winner would face the winner of the city leagues. In it’s opening year, Port Byron was the county champion.

Everyone I spoke with made a point of saying that after dinner, the ball fields and tennis courts would be filled with kids playing pickup games. There was no TV or Internet, and the kids would play until they couldn’t see the ball due to darkness.

If this stirred up any memories that you might wish to add, send them along. We are always willing to add to the story. After the story ran for a couple weeks, someone came forward with many team photos from those early days and we have been featuring them on the Facebook page. The one here is of the 1957 farm team, with our young lady in the back row, second from the right. All the names are up on the Facebook page.