In the 1920s, Easley had few places of entertainment and the boys around town created their own fun.
The old Lyric Theatre was the place to go after seeing a baseball game at Glenwood, Alice or Old Easley Mill ball park.
During the first week after school, we would gather at a point for a baseball game which was usually somebody’s cow pasture!
Back in the 1920s, a great many people kept cows and chickens in town, and there was a number of green pastures where today there are rows of brick houses with new sheets running through them. To go back to the 1920s and see how the old town looked then and compare it with the look of the 1970s, you would have to admit that there is little to resemble the former. With nearly all landmarks gone, and the recent facelift, some are calling Old Market Square a new town. And a new town it is.
In our memory we can’t forget the old. Recently I related to Belk Folger, a former resident of Easley who was visiting Jack Folger in Pickens, a certain baseball game played in the middle of the street on South First Street in September, 1920.
Fifteen or more high school and town boys gathered in Miss Nina Gilliland’s pasture in September, 1920. The pasture was near the Presbyterian Church, where the Tom Fedder house and the Beattie Williams homes are no located.
We had just started the game when Miss Nina came down and said we were tearing down the barbed wire fences.
We picked up our bricks that we were using for bases and moved into the middle of the street to finish our game. The street was dirt and very few cars in that day traveled this street.
I shall never gorget the entire event. After choosing sides, the late Virgil Rogers was picked to pitch for our side and the late Jack Hagood to pitch for the other side.
We had six gloves and a mitt, two baseballs — one horsehide covered and a thread ball — and two oak bates which belonged to Ben and R.T. Thornton. One had been cracked and had been wrapped with black function tape.
The boys present who played in this game were Holland Walker, Milton Clapp, Fred Folger, Clyde Cantrell, Jake Higgins, Jack and Ben Rogers, Herndon Smith, Glen England, Bob Stewart, Tom and Julien Wyatt, Dick Sitton, Barron Knox, Ben and R.T. Thornton. Tige Hendrix, Creepy Finley, Joe Earle Wyatt and Jack Hogood. I remember Wisley Hunt and Fred Fogler coming to the game about middle way.
A group of grown-ups gathered on the sidewalk to watch an amateur game which bordered on the professional, which at most was full of excitement.
I had been pig-tailing behind the catcher and when it came my time to bat, I picked up the wrong bat, the cracked one that had been wrapped with tape.
I had planned to hit the ball with all of my might, when Jack Hagood let loose his first fastball. Well, the bat hit the ball out on the end and broke in two. As it did, it cut a large “v” in my left hand, which bled as I rn to first base.
Every time I look at the “v” scar on my hand, I am reminded of that baseball game in 1920.
Afterthought: So many of the Easley boys who played in that game are not living today, but or those who are, this account is written. All will forever remain in my memory.
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