Yesterday: The boys of summer in Faith during the early 1940s

Published 12:00 am Monday, September 4, 2017

Buddy Barger provided this photograph showing the guys who played for the town of Faith’s baseball team in the early 1940s, prior to World War II. The coaches standing at left and right in the back were Bill Ritchie and Bob Griffith. The four players in the back row, left to right, are Jack Gibson, Claude ‘Hook’ Lyerly, Snipe Shive and Brown Fink; middle row: Buck Lyerly, Elmer Bruce, Leon ‘Benny’ Barger and Tordy Kluttz; front row: Hank Holshouser, Lee Roy Peeler and Claude Williams. The bat boy at front left is Darrell Brown ‘Bill’ Williams, who would go on to become editor of the Gastonia Gazette. Benny Barger was Buddy’s dad.