Tar Heel’s 1963 Baseball Team Were State Runners-up

By John Clark

In 1963 the Tar Heel High School baseball team came very close to winning the Class 1A State Championship. Several members of that team met recently for breakfast at Dowless’ Restaurant in Dublin to tell the story of that team.

The North Carolina High School Athletic Association did not hold baseball state championships in any classification in 1961 and 1962, so it was a surprise to the Tar Heel team when Coach Wilma Hughes told them on the last day of school in 1963 that they had baseball practice that afternoon.

The late notice cost Tar Heel one of their best hitters. Robert Wengert had already played in an American Legion game that spring and was ineligible to play in the state play-offs.

“Robert was a switch-hitting infielder who went on to play college ball,” said Larry Melvin who was the 1963 team’s leftfielder. “He could hit the ball from both sides of the plate. He just didn’t know about the state play-offs when he played with the legion team.”

Tar Heel advanced past Acme-Delco in the first round because the Delco players didn’t get the word in time and had dispersed when school was out. The Panthers advanced to the second round to play St. Pauls.

The late Murray Barnes and St. Pauls’ Steven Hall hooked up in a pitcher’s duel with both of them striking out 15 batters in the game.

“Hall was tough and I was so proud that I had finally got a hit off of him that I was bouncing up and down at second base celebrating and he picked me off,” said Tar Heel centerfielder Lynn Moore.

With Tar Heel ahead 1-0 late in the game and the tying run at second base, a ground ball to thirdbaseman Hooker McDonald led to an improbable double play that ended the threat.

“I threw to Ira (Davis) at first to get the batter,” chuckled McDonald. “And he threw it back to me. That fellow on base had been talking and jumping around the whole game, so I just turned my back and walked away from the base with the ball. Sure enough he came off the bag and I tagged him.”

“Fred Nunnery was the umpire, and he knew I still had the ball,” continued McDonald. “Ole Fred really jumped up in the air when he called him out.”

Next up for the Panthers was a semi-final game against Mt. Olive that was played at Midway High. Another 1-0 pitchers duel ensued between Tar Heel’s Barnes whose nickname was ‘Goose’ and Mt. Olive’s Doyle Whitfield.

The score was 0-0 late in the game when hits by McDonald and Ira Davis advanced rightfielder Scot Tolar to third base. Mickey Grimsley was up next and his checked swing started an argument that diverted the catcher’s attention away from Tolar.

“The pitcher toed the rubber, the ball was put back into play, and the catcher turned away from the plate and walked back toward the ump arguing,” said Melvin who was coaching third base. “I’m thinking if he takes one more step, I‘m sending Scotty. About that time I saw Mr. Hughes waving at me to send him. “

Tolar raced home with the only run of the game, while the Mt. Olive coach and catcher were disputing the call on the swing.

Tar Heel suffered a key loss at the beginning of the game when catcher Craig Davis was struck on the forehead by a Barnes warm-up pitch. “I had turned around to tell the umpire that Goose was ready and when I turned back around the ball was right there in my face,” said Davis.

In those days masks and helmets weren’t required for warm-ups. Davis had to later have a plate put in his forehead and was lost for the remainder of the play-offs. McDonald moved from third base to catcher, and Grimsley moved to third base for the semi-finals and finals.

Next up for Tar Heel was a best 2 games out of 3 series against Bath in the state finals. The series was originally slated for Plymouth but was moved to Bath before it started due to the ‘condition’ of the field at Plymouth.

The Tar Heel view on that move was slightly different. “Bath’s principal was on the 1A Board and the story was he didn’t want to play us on a field with a home run fence,” said Moore. According to the players, the Panthers walloped several balls in the series that would have been home runs on Tar Heel’s field. The Bath field was wide-open with no fence.

Bath was up 3-2 in the first game when rain stopped play after 5 innings with a couple of Tar Heel runners on base in the sixth. The game was called an official game since 5 innings had been completed. Under today’s play-off rules the game would have been completed the next day.

Down 1-0 in games, the Panthers rallied to win the second game 3-1 to tie the series 1-1 and force a third and deciding game.

The teams battled again on even terms in the final game, and Bath eventually squeaked out a 3-2 victory. Brian Singletary who was an eighth grader that season and Tar Heel’s batboy said, “Ira crushed a drive with a couple of runners on and their outfielder was knee-deep in the Pamlico Sound when he caught it.”

“He was knee-deep in broom-straw for sure,” said Melvin. “That was a big out on a huge field.”

“With school being out a lot of people didn’t know about the championship series, but the older people in the community did and they were there, ” said Singletary. “We had more people there than Bath did.”

The team stayed at a motel in Little Washington during the final series, and there was a Hardee’s across the road.

“That was the first Hardee’s I had ever seen,” said McDonald. “They had 17-cent hamburgers. It’s a wonder we didn’t get run-over crossing the road to get over there.”

“We were having so much fun doing other stuff on that trip,” added McDonald. “Most of us had never been out of Bladen County before.”

Singletary pointed out that both Tar Heel and Bath scored 7 runs each in the final series. Melvin emphasized how good the pitching was for both teams. But the consensus in the room was that had Wengert and Craig Davis played in the final series there would have been a different outcome. 

Ira Davis was Tar Heel’s other top pitcher, along with Barnes. “Ira threw four no-hitters in his sophmore season,” noted Singletary. Melvin shared that when Tar Heel went to play on the road, opposing players would meet the bus and ask was Ira pitching that day.

“He could be intimidating. They didn’t want to bat against him,” said Melvin. “He had that Randy Johnson look – tall, left-handed, hair flowing out from under his cap. And he could be a little wild with his control at times.”

Craig Davis had transferred to Tar Heel from Virginia.  “I came from a big school in Virginia, and I was just amazed at the quality of the baseball talent that came out of Tar Heel.”

“We always had some good summer teams around here,” said Melvin. “Elizabethtown and White Oak were always very competitive.

Moore added, “ We played a lot of bigger schools during the season – Stedman, Grays Creek, Pine Forest – and that helped us.”

Seniors on the 1963 team were Barnes, Ira Davis, Moore and secondbaseman Tommie Odum. Juniors included: Craig Davis, McDonald, Melvin, Tolar and Wengert.

Sophmores were: the late Floyd Bordeaux, Grimsley, the late Robert Inman, shortstop Bo Pharr and Walter Smoak, Jr. Freshmen included: Eric Davis, David Canady and the late Ollin Munn.

The late Wilma Hughes was the coach, and Singletary was the batboy.

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