Strange But True: Rag-Tag Heroes

In amateur baseball the players do not get paid, but it still costs money to field a team. Someone has to pay for uniforms, bats, balls, and other equipment. When a team plays in another town, there are bills for transportation and meals. Sometimes it’s hard to raise the money, especially when a team must travel a long way.

For example, when the Cincinnati team won the sectional championship of the Babe Ruth League in 1969, money was needed to send the youngsters to Morristown, New Jersey, where the championship playoffs would take place. Team manager Jim Kindt wrote to the Cincinnati Enquirer about the team’s plight. Station WCPO-TV broadcast the item, and the money was raised.

Another team in need was the one from San Antonio, Texas. Many teams from various sections of the country went to New Jersey in airplanes. San Antonio’s squad made the trip in a chartered bus, and the ride took 43 hours. Other teams had brand-new uniforms for the playoffs. San Antonio used the same uniforms they had played in all season.

In Babe Ruth League Tournament of Champions play, the rules call for double elimination. A team can lose one game and still remain in the tournament, but when it has lost twice, that’s the end.

Cincinnati won its first game against Asheville, North Carolina, but then lost to San Antonio. Billy Daffin, the young Texas pitcher, defeated Cincinnati’s Jim Dunway, 1-0. Later, Cincinnati lost to Puerto Rico and was eliminated.

San Antonio, the other “poor relations” team, continued to win. They beat Stamford, Connecticut, twice–once during the tournament and then again in the championship game. Billy Daffin was the pitching and batting hero of the playoffs.

The team that had straggled to New Jersey by riding a bus for almost two days was the 1969 winner of the Babe Ruth League Tournament of Champions.

From The Giant Book of More Strange But True Sports Stories by Howard Liss. Illustrations by Joe Mathieu.