The Paw Creek Major Leaguers

I'm a new member here, but I've been reading the posts for over a year now. It's been a good way to follow some of the high school and legion teams I'm interested in and maybe get some inside information. I grew up in the Paw Creek area of Charlotte which had a great baseball legacy at the time. In fact, the Legion team, which disbanded about three years ago, has two former players in the major leagues right now: Ray Durham and Chad Tracy, the young star of the Diamondbacks. They also had an almost miraculous situation back in the fifties and sixties when there were five major league players from Paw Creek at the same time, four of them from one small mill village. I have a little website about them and also one about the players from the modern era: Durham, Tracy, and Dickie Noles. Those days are gone though and over the years I've sort of adopted South Caldwell as my favorite team, both high school and legion. I have a lot of relatives up there including some who played for them in the past and I like the fact the interest level is very high. I'm hoping like crazy that maybe the Braves will end up drafting Bumgarner. They have the 14th pick and they're known for taking hordes of high school pitcthers and targeting a lot of players from the southeast. I'd be very surprised if he wasn't high on their list. I don't know if Madison is a Brave's fan, but if he is maybe he can do something like Jeff Francouer did going into the draft: He made it clear that if anyone but his hometown Braves selected him he would go to Clemson and play football and baseball. Maybe Bumgarner could use his Carolina scholarship as leverage and do the same type of thing, but that's probably just wishful thinking. I look forward to seeing how it all plays out.

 

Nice post, Westsider. I enjoyed looking through all the history on your website. As you probably know Caldwell County has a rich baseball history. Personally I think we could have had several major leagers from this area but it always seemed something else took place, (injury, home sick, etc.). Lord willing that will not be the case this time around with Bumgarner. I also wouldn't mind seeing him in Carolina Blue next spring. Hey it could happen! Check out Madison's pitching face smiley (just a little news paper picture joke)

 

I'm glad that you finally decided to post. Welcome to TBR Westsider!!!!

and you are right. Some ML clubs do not believe in signing HS players in the 1st round, but the Braves are not one of them.

I'll make a deal with Maddy. If Maddy pitches for the Braves, I'll break out the old "Tomahawk Chop...and believe me, I wouldn't do it for anyone else.

 

Nice website Westsider. I am also form the westside. Played in the mid 70's for West Meck for Coach Bolick. I grew up on Paw Creek Rd. My parents and grandmother still live there. For a while I worked at Rogers Sheet Metal, Wendall Rogers was a big supporter of the Legion program back then. While there I worked with Larry Helms, Tommmy's brother, and got to talk to Tommy whenever he stopped by. Nice to see a lot of the old names pop up. Brings back a lot of memories.

 

Thanks for the welcome and the various comments. I do have a pretty good understanding of the history of Caldwell County baseball. My father grew up in the neighborhood around Deal Stadium and played a lot of baseball, but that's really going back a long time. I also remember watching South Caldwell win the state championship at Deal Stadium with Kevin Simmons and watching Preston Woods pitch a lot of games. They always told me I was a distant cousin of his, but I didn't know him. I always enjoyed watching games at Walker Stadium in Lenoir when Caldwell used to play there.

For Blademan, l also went to West Meck and played my first year there but arm problems sort of derailed my career as I was strictly a pitcher only.