Answers to the questions: Who hit the most homeruns in a VBL season? What is the highest batting average in VBL history? Has anyone ever thrown a perfect game? What is the record for strikeouts in a game? When did the VBL begin? Which team won the most VBL championships? Which team has won the most VBL games? What is the best (or worst) record in VBL history? Which coach won the most VBL championships? Histories of All Current and Past Teams All-Time League Records Standings for Every Season Valley Baseball League Hall of Fame

This unique book is a look at the past, present, and future of baseball in Virginia, a state which has produced five Hall of Famers and several World Series stars. It also looks at the history of minor league baseball in the big cities of Norfolk and Richmond, as well as smaller cities such as Lynchburg, Salem, and Fredericksburg. In addition, the book looks at what makes Virginia unique with amateur leagues that have been around for decades, including the Valley Baseball League and the Rockingham County Baseball League, which began in 1924.

Bordered by the Blue Ridge and the Allegheny Mountains, the Shenandoah Valley forms a natural corridor to the western parts of Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Early American settlers followed the valley as one of the first routes westward. In Shenandoah Valley Folklife, Scott Hamilton Suter documents the many peoples who have left their marks on the folkways of the region--Native Americans, Germans, Swiss, Scots- Irish, and African Americans. His research reveals how the first settlers there built homes, how they worshiped, and how they passed on legends and musical traditions that continue to play a role in the community today. Throughout the book, Suter argues that the valley's past plays a definitive role in its present. He finds family traditions still thriving in crafts like white oak basketmaking, as well as in cooking and architecture. To illuminate the change and continuity in religious life, he focuses on Old Order Mennonites, the Church of the Brethren, and Baptists in the region. Using both historical sources and his own field work, Suter shows how folklife remains a powerful, resonant force in the Shenandoah, and how new immigrants are adapting and adding their own traditions to long-standing customs. Scott Hamilton Suter is curator of the Shenandoah Valley Folk Art & Heritage Center in Dayton, Virginia. He was a Senior Fulbright Scholar and University Fellow at The George Washington University and wrote "Tradition and Fashion: Cabinetmaking in the Upper Shenandoah Valley, 1850-1900" and has had articles in the "Folklore Historian" and the "Virginia Explorer."

Although many people know Williamsport as the "birthplace of Little League Baseball, " it is also a city with a rich professional baseball tradition. Since the earliest days of the Pennsylvania State Association, professional minor league baseball has flourished in Williamsport, and hundreds of players and managers have passed through historic Bowman Field on their way to the major leagues, including Jim Bunning, Ferguson Jenkins, and Nolan Ryan. Gateway to the Majors is a comprehensive history of professional minor league baseball in Williamsport from the earliest days up to the present.The accompanying appendix of former Williamsport players who played in the Major Leagues is a valuable reference tool for baseball historians. In addition, this book illustrates how the city's relationship with baseball forged a distinct civic identity and national reputation as "Baseball Town, USA."

Mexican American Baseball in the San Fernando Valley explores the teams and players that dotted the valley landscape throughout the 20th century. In a time and place where Mexican Americans were closed off from many city recreation centers, neighborhoods formed their own teams. Baseball and softball reinforced community and regional ties, strengthened family bonds, instilled discipline and dedication that translated into future professional careers, provided women opportunities outside their traditional roles in the home, and fostered lifelong friendships. These photographs serve as a lens to both local sports history and Mexican American history.