Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 6, 1993 TAG: 9302060128
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
INDUCTEES GLAD TO BE REMEMBERED
TO THE MEN joining the Roanoke-Salem Baseball Hall of Fame, the sport never got so big that they don't feel honored as hometown heroes.\ John Oates played 11 years for five major-league baseball teams on the same squads with guys such as Hank Aaron, Steve Carlton, and Reggie Jackson. He has played for Tommy Lasorda and the late Dick Howser.
Oates has been all over the country. He managed teams to mi-league pennants in two classifications. He has managed in Baltimore in the most glamorous new park in the bigs, Oriole Park at Camden Yards. He's penciled Cal Ripken's name into his lineup 287 times.
But don't ever try to tell Oates that his election to the Roanoke-Salem Baseball Hall of Fame is anything less than a very big deal. Small potatoes?
"No way," the Baltimore Orioles manager and former Virginia Tech catcher said. "Everybody had to start somewhere, and this is where I started."
They call a catcher's bulky and uncomfortable armor "the tools of ignorance," and Oates is not the only one of the five electees to have been so afflicted. Former big-leaguer Ron Hodges of Rocky Mount and the late Jack Crosswhite of Salem also were catchers.
Those three, along with retired Salem businessman Ralph Richardson and Roanoke native Russ Peters, will be inducted into the hall Sunday evening at the second annual Hot Stove Banquet at the Salem Civic Center. A crowd in excess of 600 is expected.
The five were elected by the hall's 11-man board of directors. They join the first induction class of Walter "Steve" Brodie, F.J. "Kid" Carr, Al Holland, Dave Parker and Billy Sample. To be chosen, a person must have been involved in baseball as a player, manager/coach or contributor in a seven-county region: Roanoke, Bedford, Botetourt, Craig, Franklin, Floyd and Montgomery.
Hodges alone anticipates family and friends filling eight tables with eight seats each.
"I'm very honored to be recognized as a baseball player in my hometown," said Hodges, who played 12 years with the New York Mets. "We [he's married to the former Peggy Jarrett] are really from Rocky Mount, but we've spent so much time in Roanoke that we consider it home."
Richardson, 77, is recognized along with the late Jack Dame as the most important influence in keeping Salem in the Appalachian and Carolina leagues during the period since 1955-79.
"This is not something that I anticipated," Richardson said of his election. "But I am very honored that it's happened."
Peters, 77, who now lives in Bedford, played 10 major-league seasons as a utility infielder starting in 1936 with the Philadelphia Athletics. He also played for the Cleveland Indians and St. Louis Browns.
"I'm very happy," he said. "I think that every prominent athlete should have something like this, to be recognized by his own hometown."
Crosswhite died in 1955 with more than 800 minor-league victories as a manager, winning Appalachian League pennants at New River, Kingsport, Welch and Salem.
Peters remembered Crosswhite as a player in what were then known as semi-pro leagues in Southwestern Virginia.
"I knew both Jack and his brother Harry when we all played in the old Blue Ridge League," Peters said. "Harry played with me on the Wytheville team, and Jack played for Galax. Jack was pretty rough. He wanted to win. I saw him and Harry get into a fight right there on the field one time."
The banquet will include a baseball card show (admission is free) from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. in the civic center's Community Room. There also will be door prizes and sales of videotapes of the event shot that night.
The popularity of the event after only two years - 200 more tickets have been sold this year - has taken organizers somewhat by surprise.
"A little bit," hall of fame president Posey Oyler said. "I thought it would be something that people would enjoy the first year, but I was looking for about 300 people to come and we got 417. This year, I thought we'd get maybe 100 people more than we had last year."
Oyler gave the credit to the hall's board of directors.
"We have a diverse group of people on the board, and all of them know to how to promote," he said.