The stories have grown over the years, like the bamboo stalks that once rimmed the original Cape May Little League Field on Lafayette Street.
“I hit 55 home runs one year,” Ed McDuell said with a smile. “Actually, I hit one.”
It was 70 years ago, but seemed like yesterday to those who played in that inaugural season of the Greater Cape May Little League.
“Bobby King and John Mousley were the best pitchers,” Ed Sherretta said. “I was lucky they were my teammates so I didn’t have to face them. They threw so hard that kids would actually cry when they stepped into the batter’s box.”
The League got its start in 1955 when founder George Feitz, Charles Hickman Sr. and other community leaders built a field on Lafayette Street where the current Cape May Elementary School now sits.
It wasn’t fancy. The outfield had a snow fence about 200 feet from home plate. Wooden benches were used until dugouts were built.
But to the kids who played that first year, it was like Yankee Stadium.
“I was 9 at the time and when I heard they were going to have Little League, I was very excited,” Sherretta said. “It was a very big deal.”
Prior to that year, baseball was reserved for pickup games in vacant lots or even at the beach. There was also wire ball, wiffle ball, step ball and “run the bases.”
Baseball at the beach meant grabbing a tennis ball and borrowing the bottom of one of the Steger’s Beach Service umbrellas to use as a bat.
Pickup games were at the water tower on Madison Avenue, the lot behind the Christian Admiral on Beach Drive or sometimes in the lots on Lafayette Street before the field was built.
“Cape May was a lot different back then,” Terry Shields said. “You left your house after breakfast and wouldn’t come back until the street lights came on at night.”
A few blocks away, on Maryland, New York, and Idaho Avenues, similar games were held. Neighborhood kids played baseball at the Admiral lot, football across the street from the Wunder’s house, basketball in Dave Velli’s driveway before heading to the beach and riding waves on a canvas raft.
Then it was home for dinner and back out for a quick game of “Capture the Flag” or “Flashlight Tag” in the lot next to the Gilbert’s house.
The Cape May Little League had four teams that first year: American Legion, Chamber of Commerce, Kiwanis and Merchant’s Bank.
Paul “Barky” Lundholm, who was 12 at the time, was the top player for Merchant’s Bank. Sherretta played for Legion, McDuell suited up for Kiwanis and Shields played his first year with Lundholm for Bank, then switched to Rotary to play for his dad when the league expanded to six teams in 1956.
“It was so much fun,” McDuell said. “After the season, we had a banquet and they always had a Phillies player there. I remember one year, it was Curt Simmons. And they also took us to a Phillies game every year.”
Phil Hickman was considered the best player in the league, while King, Mousley and Jim Cox were the top pitchers.
The league did not have an All-Star team that first year, so coaches arranged for some top players to play some games at Millville.
“We played near Leesburg prison,” Lundholm said. “The prisoners were so impressed with Bobby King, they started calling him, ‘Satch-mo,’ after Satchel Paige. After the game, they gave us chocolate chip cookies that were made by the prisoners.”
Cape May’s Boys of Summer are now in the latter innings.
Lundholm is 82, McDuell is 80 and Sherretta and Shields are 79.
In life, as in baseball, they have experienced wins and losses, home runs and strikeouts, diving catches and bad hop grounders.
They saw former teammates go to Vietnam and come back with scars that never healed.
Others never came back at all.
They been through marriages and births and burials.
But they have endured, due in large part to the bonds and relationships formed on a dirt baseball field on Lafayette Street in 1955.
“Those were the best times,” Sherretta said. “Above everything else, Little League was where I made my friends.”
Sherretta and some of those friends were together again on a baseball field last week.
A large crowd lined the fences and filled the bleachers at Optimist Field in Lower Township to watch the 9-10-year-old championship game.
Sherretta, Shields and Lundholm stood in front of the pitcher’s mound while the players were introduced.
“My goodness,” Shields whispered to his friends. “Were we that little back then?”
They then sat back and watched Eldridge Electric earn a 6-5 victory over Lotus & Birch in extra innings.
Afterward, a 9-year-old boy named Hampton fought back tears as he left the field after the loss, only to be hugged by his Poppy.
“Tell him to hold his head high,” Sherretta said. “Also, tell him that in 70 years, he’ll look like us, but he’ll have some great memories.”
(Baseball) diamonds really are forever.
David is a nationally recognized sports columnist who has covered Philadelphia and local sports for over 40 years. After 35 years with The Press, he has served as a columnist for 973ESPN.com and created his own Facebook page, Dave Weinberg Extra Points.
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