There Is No Telling What you Might Find Rambling

Post 58 Advances.  New Bern Post 24 has not done Coleman Pitt Post 58 any favors in forfeiting again the second game of the opening round of the American Legion Playoffs.  CP 58 will host the winner of Wayne Co/Edenton Thursday night at 7.00pm at Nash Central High School.  This will pit CP 58 against a team  fresh off playoff competition.  CP 58 will have by then been idle for 11 days and with this being a two out of three series game one will be critical Thursday.


Wayne Co last night  beat Edenton 14-7- Kinston beat Wilson 3-0- Pitt Co beat Ahoskie 7-4 so if the opening round games are any indication the Southern Division seems to be stronger this year and Post 58 needs playing time to prepare for round two which would Start Thursday night against Wayne Co/Edenton winner.


 It was one of those nights, not much on TV worth watching so I go and get on the computer and just start rambling.  I make my way to the North Carolina American Legion Hall Of Fame.  You never know what you might find when you look.  The Bible says you will reap what you sow so on this late night I was sowing.  I am pondering the names on the list and of course there are very few that I know but a few I recognize until I come across one that made me do a double take.

Lawrence Davis was inducted into the North Carolina American Legion Hall Of Fame in 1978.  That was ten years before I had ever heard of Davis. If it weren't for Kevin Costner none of us might know the name  and I would have kept scanning the names without even a blink as I called the name out.  I said to myself  I wonder if that was "Crash"?  Sure enough there is a Crash Davis and and Lawrence Davis in the North Carolina American Legion Hall of Fame is the one and the same.  Very seldom does a movie offer facts and  you know at the start of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" it starts out by saying some of this story is true. Bull Durham just a little bit was true about Crash Davis.

Lawrence Davis was born in Georgia in 1919 and by the age of 14 was playing ball in Gastonia where he as an infielder went barrelling into another outfielder  and thus the name Crash.  By 1940 Crash was captain of the Duke University baseball team.  The movie implies he made it to the show(Big Leagues) but was only there while a player was injured and after the injury back to the minors so he was in the majors for two weeks?  Real life he played three years for the Philadelphia Athletics and as a middle infielder  not a catcher as the movie says hit a whopping two home runs  in 150 games.

The U S Army drafted him into World War II in 1942 and he helped win the war  at Harvard College heading up the ROTC program there.  1946 came and off to play for the Durham Bulls.  Yes he really did play for the Bulls.  Two other teams of the Carolina League saw Crash on their field in Reidsville and Raleigh before he retired in 1952.

Thirty Six years would past before a know nothing like me would hear his name again.  Why would he be in the American Legion Hall of Fame.  Back in the thirty's Legion baseball was not confined to just 15/16 Junior Legion or Senior Legion 17/18.  Crash started playing Legion sponsored  ball at 11 and by 1935 Gastonia with Crash at shortstop won the Legion National Championship.  1936 their effort to win it again stopped at the North Carolina State Championship game.

Annie in the movie Bull Durham says that Crash hit a record number of home runs while in the minors.  The truth is Crash hit 45 which was no where near the 212 the movie suggest.

The 4th of July is a time for us as Americans to cherish what we have.  I think one thing lost today  in the school systems is American History.  People no longer respect from where they came.  Baseball at one time North Carolina had produced more major league baseball players than any other.  Baseball like America has a history.  There is no telling what kind of history you might find if you go looking for it.