Lynchburg’s Pastime

Collecting baseball memorabilia is also an American pastime. Baseball hats are one of three hats synonymous with Americans.  First came the coonskin hat which originated with Native Americans and was often worn by settlers and frontiersmen, then came the cowboy hat that protected ranchers and cowhands through all the elements thrown at them in the American West.  Finally, the most pervasive hat was the ball cap.  The New York Knickerbockers first chose to add a hat to their uniform.  The straw hat changed to a billed cap by 1860.  Logos were added in 1901, and in 1903, the longer bill was stitched to make it sturdier.  During the 1980s the cap became a fashion accessory and is worn world-wide.

• Musketeers Baseball Uniform Cap,
  1918 This is a baseball uniform cap belonging to Lt. Guy Alex Dirom, worn during his tour of duty in France in 1918.
  Gift of Guy Alex Dirom

• Musketeers Charles MacLeod, T K Menefee, and John James served in the Virginia National Guard assigned to the Army 1st Battalion, 29th Infantry Division, 116th Infantry Regiment. Photo from 1916.
  Gift of Guy Alex Dirom

Along with trading cards, pins were a way for companies to use the popularity of early baseball players to promote their products. Created by Benjamin Whitehead in the early 1890’s, they were called “pin-backs” and resembled a small button.   The earliest of these baseball pins were made for Pepsin Gum in 1897. The front featured a photo of an early Hall of Famer, his name, and team, the back had a small advertisement for the company.  

As the popularity of the game increased in the pre-war era, so did baseball trading pins. Candy, tobacco, and other companies created their own sets to give out to entice fans. Quaker Oats created a Babe Ruth Fan Club in 1934 with a set of pins that people could sign up for. These pins of the Sultan of Swat are some of the most sought after by collectors today.  Pins eventually gave way to trading cards as the Century progressed. But they made a return in youth sports in the early 1980’s.

• Little League Cap of Coach Wayne Hopper
  Gift of Dennis Cooley

Many fans also collect trading cards, autographs, baseballs, jerseys, programs, and tickets.

• Rain Check Tickets for the Lynchburg Baseball Club at Municipal Stadium, 1900. Weldon Williams, & Lick, Ft. Smith, Ark. Since 1898
  Note tickets of this style are still used today for raffles and local ticketed activities.  The company is still creating tickets for events. 
  Gift of Jack Pollard

• 1994 Lynchburg Red Sox baseball season tickets. Ticket Craft
  Class A league opponents included Wilmington (NC), Kinston (NC), Prince William (VA), Salem (VA), Winston-Salem (NC) and Durham (NC).  Each ticket has the Lynchburg Red Sox logo printed in red with price, seat number, date and time of game, game number and name of opponent.
  Donated by Mrs. William Brunson (Sarah A. McDonald )

• 1983 Carolina Champions Lynchburg Mets Autographed Baseball
  On loan from Vince Sawyer, Lynchburg baseball historian 

  
  

  
  

  
  

Baseball has found adoring fans and collectors in Lynchburg since the middle of the 19th century.

Professional Baseball in Lynchburg

In 1886, Lynchburg fielded its first professional team, the “Lynchburgs.” The Hill City hosted Major League exhibition games as the teams left spring training to head north. Today the Lynchburg Hillcats are a Minor League Baseball team in the Carolina League and a Single-A affiliate of the Cleveland Guardians. 
Although the “Lynchburgs” was the first professional team name, many of the later team names reflected Lynchburg’s unique heritage:

• In 1886, Lynchburg fielded its first professional team, the “Lynchburgs.”

• Hill Climbers 1894

• Tobacconists 1895

• Shoemakers 1906 – 1912, 1917

• Lynchburg Red Sox 1915

• Lynchburg White Sox, “a colored baseball aggregation” was organized and played a full season against Charlottesville, Richmond, Roanoke, and others

• Lynchburg Grays 1939

• Senators 1940-1942

• Lynchburg or LYN- (Senators, Cardinals, White Sox, Twins, Rangers, Mets, Red Sox)

• Hillcats 1995-present (Pittsburgh Pirates from 1995 to 2009, Cincinnati Reds in 2010, and Atlanta Braves from 2011 to 2014, currently Cleveland Guardians)

In 2024, the Hillcats name for 30 seasons is celebrated. Lynchburg has seen tremendous success since switching over to the Hillcats title, winning five of their eight league titles in that span, most recently in 2017.

Prior to the 2017 season, Lynchburg looked to launch a complete rebrand of the organization. Fans were allowed to vote on a new name for the team, but the community voted to stick with the Hillcats. The team would announce a new logo and color scheme before the season, switching from black, forest green, and yellow, to midnight blue, cyan, green, and white. 30 years later, the name holds strong as a staple of the Lynchburg community.

The first two images above feature advertisements for photography studios in Lynchburg:

April 22, 1850, from Lynchburg Virginian newspaper. (Courtesy of Library of Virginia/Virginia Chronicle)

July 31, 1857, from Lynchburg Daily Virginian newspaper. (Courtesy of Library of Virginia/Virginia Chronicle)

Friday, August 24-Sunday, August 26, 1962

After the Washington Senators pulled out of Lynchburg in 1959, Lynchburg was without a Professional Team. Vince Sawyer a Lynchburg Baseball historian tells of Calvin Falwell, Jr's surprising weekend accomplishment:

“An amazing set of circumstances would result in Lynchburg’s gaining a team, and a relationship with Major League baseball, which continues to this day. In 1962 the owner of a Chicago White Sox South Atlantic League (AA) farm team in Savannah, Georgia (known as the Savsox) was losing a lot of money due to a boycott of the team’s games. Two black players (Grover “Deacon” Jones (1934-2023)and Don Buford) were married. Seating was segregated and the black players’ wives' seats were in an area in the sun. The white players’ wives were seated in the shade. One hot July day Virginia Jones and Alicia Buford had decided that they didn’t want to sit in the hot sun, and they moved to seats next to the white players in the shade. The team’s insistence that they return to their seats in the sun, and their refusal, precipitated an NAACP boycott of the Savsox games. Calvin Falwell and other city leaders who had advocated for professional baseball in Lynchburg for years, learned of the situation from a White Sox connection. The team owner was open to moving the team to Lynchburg, and after weeks of discussion with city officials about the use of City Stadium, lighting improvements needed, etc. In mid-August he agreed to the move . Calvin Falwell, with the blessing of city officials, flew to Savannah on Friday August 24 and met with the team that evening. Calvin remembered that Deacon Jones did ask about the origin of our city’s name. The story of our Quaker founder apparently satisfied Jones. The team moved to Lynchburg by bus Saturday, and played their first game in City Stadium on Sunday, August 26. 5,500 people showed up and professional baseball once again had a home in the Hill City.”

The baseball diamond at the City Stadium is named in Calvin Falwell Jr’s honor.

The Best Ever Lynchburg Team

The 1983, 1984, and 1985 Lynchburg Mets teams had the most talent, with 96, 89, and 95 wins respectively during that three-year period. They were the talk of the minor leagues because they were so dominant, especially the 1983 team with Dwight “Doc” Gooden and Lenny Dykstra setting Carolina League records for 300 strikeouts by Gooden and 105 stolen bases by Dykstra. Dykstra hit .358, a number topped once in the Carolina League since (Hill-cats first baseman Chris Shelton hit .359 in 2002). Just 20 years old at the time, Dykstra also had 46 extra-base hits, 81 RBIs and 105 stolen bases.

Matt Eddy from Magster Magazine wrote about Gooden’s Minor League milestone:

“While 300-strikeout seasons are rare in the major leagues, they are all but nonexistent in the minors. Nolan Ryan, the single-season and all-time major league strikeout king, struck out 307 batters in 1966, mostly at Class A in his first full year out of the draft. Only one minor league pitcher has reached 300 since.

That pitcher was Dwight Gooden, who as an 18-year-old righthander in 1983 struck out a minor league-leading 300 Carolina League batters in 191 innings. The typical minor-league leader during this period finished north of 200 strikeouts—but well short of 300.

Since Gooden reached 300, no other minor league pitcher has topped 250 strikeouts. Tom Gordon’s 234 in 1988 is the highest total since Gooden’s feat.

Gooden, drafted fifth overall by the Mets in 1982, went 19-4, 2.50 in 27 starts for high-Class A Lynchburg in 1983 and claimed the BA Minor League Player of the Year award.

The ’83 Mets were untouchable. They led the Carolina League in hitting (.278 average) and pitching (3.13 ERA), took home player (Dykstra), pitcher (Gooden) and manager (Perlozzo) of the year honors and went 53-17 (.757) on the road, setting a minor league record.

More recently, Carolina League Champions 2009 Lynchburg Hillcats, 45% (eighteen) of the players from this championship year subsequently moved to the Major Leagues, more than any other Lynchburg team, before or since.

Nathan Adcock
Pedro Alvarez
Chase d’Arnaud
Eric Fryer
Harvey Garcia
Matt Hague
Josh Harrison
Jeff Locke
Starling Marte
Jody Mercer
Lastings Milledge
Dustin Molleken
Bryan Morris
Rudy Owens
Alex Presley
Jamie Romak
Tony Sanchez
Justin Wilson

Minor League Heroes

Lynchburg was the training ground for several nationally recognized MLB players. Here are three:

Albert “Smilin’ Al” Orth, Sr. (1872-1948) On July 18, 1907, Al Orth became the first pitcher to win 100 games in both the American and National League.  Known as the Curveless Wonder, he started with the Tobacconists in Lynchburg, in the Virginia League.  He moved to the majors and won 100 games in seven seasons with the Phillies. He moved to the Washington Senators for two years, then to the New York Highlanders (Yankees), where he won his second hundred games. He umpired while still playing as a pinch hitter, and umpired for Major League baseball after 1909. Orth later coached at Washington and Lee and Virginia Military Institute.  He is buried at Spring Hill Cemetery.

Dwight “Doc” Gooden and Lenny Dykstra were two players that made their mark in Minor League Baseball history with the Lynchburg Mets in 1983. Matt Eddy from Magster Magazine wrote about their Minor League milestones:

“While 300-strikeout seasons are rare in the major leagues, they are all but nonexistent in the minors. Nolan Ryan, the single-season and all-time major league strikeout king, struck out 307 batters in 1966, mostly at Class A in his first full year out of the draft. Only one minor league pitcher has reached 300 since.

That pitcher was Dwight Gooden, who as an 18-year-old righthander in 1983 struck out a minor league-leading 300 Carolina League batters in 191 innings. The typical minor-league leader during this period finished north of 200 strikeouts—but well short of 300.

Since Gooden reached 300, no other minor league pitcher has topped 250 strikeouts. Tom Gordon’s 234 in 1988 is the highest total since Gooden’s feat.

Gooden, drafted fifth overall by the Mets in 1982, went 19-4, 2.50 in 27 starts for high-Class A Lynchburg in 1983 and claimed the BA Minor League Player of the Year award. One of the more interesting aspects of Gooden’s epic season was that he completed 10 games and walked 112 batters—5.3 per nine innings—which is a reminder of how player development standards have changed for pitchers through the years.”

Eddy, Matt. “Minor League Milestones.” Magzter, Baseball America, 2020, www.magzter.com/stories/Sports/Baseball-America/MINOR-LEAGUE-MILESTONES.

Exhibition games

The Hill City hosted Major League exhibition games as the teams left spring training to head north. Lynchburg was convenient for travel by train.

Nat Fein Pulitzer Prize winning photo The Babe Bows Out, June 13,1948
Nat Fein (1914-2000)
The first sports photograph to receive the Pulitzer, Nat Fein's image of Babe Ruth being honored at Yankee stadium in 1948 depicts the ballplayer from the back as he stands on the field before the spectators. For Fein, a staffer who covered human-interest items for the New York Herald-Tribune, the fortuitous absence of the usual sports photographer resulted in an opportunity to step up and capture the image that became one of the most well-known photographs in American sports. Part of its power comes from Fein's choice to position himself where The Babe faces away from the camera. Even without the famous No. 3 on his uniform, Ruth's figure is unmistakable. This perspective gives the viewer the same perspective as George Herman Ruth (February 6, 1895–August 16, 1948)
Courtesy of the Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College, Lynchburg, Virginia

Babe Ruth in Lynchburg
April 3, 1920 The NEWS p 8

Three Days of Major League Baseball Advertisement
The News March 23, 1952

Major League Baseball Advertisement
April 07, 1952 The News p 7

April 7, 1952 Brooklyn Dodgers vs. Boston Braves Exhibition Game Scorecard signed by Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella

Found in the Dr. R. Walter “Whirlwind” Johnson home (1422 Pierce Street) while undergoing renovation. Jackie Robinson and other African American players ate and stayed on Pierce Street while visiting Lynchburg on their way north from spring training during the Jim Crow era.
Courtesy of the Whirlwind Johnson Foundation

James T. Smith

Containing over 1,200 images, the Smith Photograph Collection chronicles African American life and culture in Lynchburg during the mid-20th century. Named for James Thomas Smith (1898–1986), the principal photographer behind this body of work, the collection captures rarely documented occasions in the lives of African American citizens during the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, the decades immediately preceding racial desegregation in Lynchburg. Many of Smith’s images depict celebratory events, including weddings and graduations, while others feature everyday moments of study, work, and contemplation. Taken during an era when African American achievements were excluded from mainstream news sources, these photographs preserve important people, places, and events, and provide a remarkable, collective portrait of the local Black community.

For thirty years, James Smith resided on the corner of Jackson and Fifth Streets in Downtown Lynchburg, with his wife, Lillian, a teacher at R. S. Payne Elementary School. Smith worked for the postal transportation service and considered photography, primarily, a hobby. Preferring to work with sepia-toned and black-and-white film, Smith constructed a darkroom in his Jackson Street home so that he could develop his own photographs. The negatives and prints that make up the collection were preserved and donated by Smith’s granddaughter, Pamela Smith-Johnson.

Smith produced a large number of portraits, some of which feature well-known leaders and exemplars within the community, including Anne Spencer and C. W. Seay. Many of the sitters in Smith’s work, however, have not been identified. The Lynchburg Museum welcomes your stories and your assistance as we continue to examine and explore the Smith Photograph Collection. 

Black Photographers in Lynchburg: The 20th Century

With the introduction of affordable, easy-to-use cameras around the turn of the 20th century, the scope of photography expanded further. In 1888, George Eastman advertised his box camera, the Kodak No. 1, with the tagline “You press the button, we do the rest.” A few years later, in 1900, the Eastman Kodak Company released the Brownie camera, which retailed for one dollar. No longer solely relegated to professional studios, cameras were increasingly brought out into daily life and used to document a wider range of the human experience. As a result, portrait photography broadened to include more complex and dynamic imagery beyond the traditional picture of a posed sitter in a formal setting. A photographer might choose to capture the subject of a portrait at work or at play, in a living room or in nature. These choices were often in direct conversation with the personality and preoccupations of the sitter. 

During this time, a number of important African American photographers emerged who were using this medium to illuminate overlooked corners of their culture. Artists such as James Van Der Zee (1886–1983), Gordon Parks (1912–2006), Roy DeCarava (1919–2009), and Carrie Mae Weems (born 1953) shaped perceptions of African American culture through their work by highlighting the once-hidden nuances within their respective environments. In Lynchburg, photographer James T. Smith created a similarly ground-breaking body of work. Working in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, Smith produced hundreds of photographs that documented well-known leaders as well as everyday figures within the city’s African American community.

Jon Roark

Lynchburg resident, Jon Roark, is an award-winning artist and educator, who specializes in illustration and painting. He works in a variety of media, including watercolor, acrylic, and egg tempera, an ancient method of painting in which pigments are mixed in a water-soluble binder of egg yolk. Roark studied European History and Studio Art at Lynchburg College (University of Lynchburg), and graduated from the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, with a degree in Illustration. After serving as an art director for several years, he devoted himself to instruction, both at University of Lynchburg and Heritage High School, where he taught art for fifteen years. 

In 2018, Roark and his students produced a collection of art work that examined the history of Lynchburg’s African American community through portraiture. Initially created as a response to the violent 2017 rally in Charlottesville, the project offered Roark an opportunity to foster empathy in his students while teaching  important artistic techniques. The collection, consisting of about eighty portraits, was featured at Lynchburg’s Academy Center for the Arts, as well as the Legacy Museum of African American History. After the success of these shows, the Academy commissioned a second show for the following year on the theme of Juneteenth. 

This project with his students inspired Roark to explore the history of Lynchburg’s African American community further through his own artwork. In both Mary Brice at Point of Honor (left) and Emancipation Gothic (below), the artist produced portraits of enslaved individuals who had lived in Lynchburg, hoping that he might “give them a voice through art.” Roark chose to use the egg tempera medium because “it has a glowing quality to its surface and richness I thought these African American subjects deserve.” Recently, Roark expressed: “My hope as an artist is that the faces I bring forward in these portraits are treated in memory with the kindness and respect they deserve. If I have been able to lift them up, and give them a voice, they, too, have been invited for a second show.”

Symbolic elements in Emancipation Gothic:

Jon Roark embedded a number of symbols and references into Emancipation Gothic, many of which are Lynchburg specific and speak to the city’s history of slavery.

• The title and basic design of the painting allude to Grant Wood’s Regionalist painting, American Gothic.

• In this work, two members of Lynchburg’s enslaved community are memorialized: Richard Toler and Martha Spence Edley, both of whom weathered the transition from slavery to Emancipation.

• The house in the background is based on the oldest surviving house in Lynchburg, the Miller-Claytor House, which was built in the 1790s and later preserved in Riverside Park.

• The sign marked “Indian Queen Tavern,” refers to an establishment once located in downtown Lynchburg, where enslaved individuals were auctioned and sold. 

• The red banner, located on the right along the roofline of the house, refers to a specific practice within the slave trade. At auction houses, slave traders displayed a red banner to announce sales. Traders pinned scraps of paper to the banner, which communicated details of specific individuals coming up for sale.

• In the foreground, the cast iron fence acknowledges Lynchburg’s shift to manufacturing after the Civil War. 

• In the far, lower right corner, a rusty shackle and chain hanging on the fence represent the complicated transition to freedom after Emancipation. While the shackles hang open, their presence is a reminder of the freedom-limiting restrictions placed on African Americans during that time. 

• For Roark, flowers growing through the fence are meant to represent “the beauty created by our formerly enslaved citizens despite the obstructions thrown up by society.”

• The red flowers are nasturtiums, a variety that poet Anne Spencer loved and grew in her garden. 

• Finally, the crow is a direct reference to the Jim Crow laws, the state and local laws which enforced racial segregation throughout the American South for decades after the Civil War. For Roark, the crow, which seems “content among the flowers” is a “reminder of the hate that we still fight against every day.”   

Lynchburg’s Christina Davis

Christina Davis is a self-taught fine artist and painting instructor at Academy Center of the Arts, where she teaches classes in acrylics and gouache. A native and resident of Lynchburg, Davis specializes in large-scale outdoor murals, which can be viewed in various locations throughout the city. Her work can also be found inside several buildings in Lynchburg, including the R. S. Payne Middle School and the YMCA of Lynchburg. Writing in October, 2023, Davis expressed that, "artists who create black portraiture are able to give voice to the feelings and experiences of their viewers, while also exploring their own personal narratives. Through their work, they are able to capture the essence of their subjects and convey their stories in a way that can be appreciated by all.” 

Created in an abstract style that features bright, vivid colors, this portrait was painted for the Lynchburg Peacemakers Silent Auction held on July 29, 2023 at Point of Honor, and commemorates Murrel Warren ("Teedy") Thornhill, Jr. (1921-2016), Lynchburg's first African-American mayor.

Mayor Thornhill graduated from Lynchburg’s Dunbar High School in 1940, and later attended and graduated from St. Emma Military Academy, near Powhatan, Virginia. A funeral director by profession, he served as the president and owner of Community Funeral Home on Fifth Street, and held a membership at Court Street Baptist Church, where he was also a trustee.Thornhill was involved in politics throughout his life. For over 40 years, he presided over the Lynchburg Voter’s League and won the Ward II seat on Lynchburg City Council in 1972. In 1990, he became Lynchburg’s first African American Mayor. Due to failing health, he retired two years later in 1992.

Ann van de Graaf & Deloris “Dee” Fowler

Lynchburg artist, Ann van de Graaf, was born in Africa, and spent her early years living in East Africa and England. She studied drawing and painting with the Lynchburg Art Club and Lynchburg Fine Arts Center, and graduated from Randolph Macon Woman’s College in 1974, with a double major in Art and Sociology. From the beginning of her career as an artist, Ms. van de Graaf has explored themes related to racial equality and created work that champions figures from Lynchburg’s African American community. One of her most respected works, Lord, Plant My Feet on Higher Ground (1993), is a large-scale, panoramic triptych, depicting individuals associated with the civil rights movement in Lynchburg during the 1960s and 1970s. That work is on permanent display at the Legacy Museum of African American History in Lynchburg.

On the Dais is inspired by a civil rights event (ca. 1970) at Court Street Baptist Church, where Deloris “Dee” Fowler, along with other leaders from the Voters League and NAACP, assembled to address concerns regarding the improvement and redevelopment of Lynchburg for the African American community at that time. In attendance when the participants processed in, the artist observed that every participant was male except Fowler. According to van de Graaf, Ms. Fowler “never pushed for recognition,” but also wasn’t afraid to draw attention. Aware that she would be the only woman on the dais surrounded by men, Fowler chose to wear the regal color purple so that she might stand out. For van de Graaf, the color perfectly expressed Fowler’s elegance and subtle power. 

Ann van de Graaf & L. Garnell Stamps

Lynchburg native, L. Garnell Stamps (1934 - 2014), was a teacher, poet, and respected leader within the city’s civil rights movement. Stamps graduated from Dunbar High School, earned a B.A. in English from University of Maryland, Eastern Shore, and took graduate classes at University of Lynchburg and University of Virginia. He later taught English in the Lynchburg School System. For several years, Stamps also hosted a televised talk show,“The Real Viewpoint,” on which he interviewed a number of notable figures, including Ms. Rosa Parks, Dr. Maya Angelou, Anne Spencer, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

As an orator and writer, Garnell Stamps is remembered as someone who understood the power of words. In 1982, Stamps, along with  Ann van de Graaf and Barry Donald Jones, created Bargara Press, a publication committed to representing female and minority voices. In 1983, Bargara published “This Robe of Flesh, An Elegy Written after the Death of the Dreamer, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,” a collaboration written by Stamps and illustrated by van de Graaf. “Praise Song for an Alma Mater,” published in 1989, featured a commemorative ode, written by Stamps, in honor of  Dunbar High School.