To the Editor:
There’s nothing like standing next to a proud mama when her boy cracks the bat and drives in the winning run. Jeri Taylor’s huge grin and delighted laughter were as magical as the scene of son, Landon, jumping up and down on the infield dirt, hair flailing in the evening chill, awaiting the mob of Raider teammates racing his way to bury him under a gleeful dogpile.
Jabari Douglas was a part of that pile. Along with Isaac Hinshaw, James Eason and Collin Hill, Douglas helped set the stage for Taylor’s walk-off hit. It was Douglas who raced home to plate the winning run. Hill appeared seasoned beyond his youth, doubling in the tying runs ahead of Taylor.
In its 52nd season now, Richmond Senior High baseball has claimed conference crowns in exactly half of them. New coach Eric Brown is determined to return his charges to that winning tradition, and contributed as a player on the 2001 and 2002 conference champs. The final inning rally against a tough Purnell Swett foe on March 20 was a convincing step in that direction.
In fact, 2024 marks a half-century since RSH’s first-ever 4A state title. (The Raiders claimed a 3A state title in 1973.) In the manner that traditions are passed down, Brown’s high school coach, Ronnie Yarbrough, played on that 1974 team — undefeated over 25 games against other high schools. I’ve caught up with Ronnie at recent home games watching grandson Collin Hill play. Although high school games aren’t noted for a plethora of home runs, he seemed surprised that I remembered the March 1974 day when he rapped two dingers in consecutive at-bats at Raeford.
Memories of that time would flood back, later, as I perused my scrapbook of that season. It was a different time for school athletics, and for local sports coverage. Title IX re-shaped and, really, opened up girls’ and women’s athletics on the high school and collegiate levels. In 1974, however, the law was in its infancy and male sports still ruled the coverage. The 1974 baseball Raiders were awash in news ink that spring, decades before Facebook, Twitter, et al.
The Daily Journal was fortunate at that time to boast the talents of Bill Futterer III heading its sports desk. Bill didn’t just report the games, he told the stories, often painting vivid pictures through his words. About Ronnie Yarbrough’s exploits in Raeford: “The Ellerbe southpaw’s blast … was last seen hurrying toward the naked oaks that loosely bordered the park.”
In Futterer’s account, Chuck McLean’s fastball “resembled a beam of light — flashing from the mound … then exploding past the futile bats …” “His curve … manhandled a befuddled Scot club as it dove low and hard across whatever portion of the plate McLean desired.”
As valuable as any of 1974’s Raiders was catcher Randy Wilkerson, a leather-tough character who would have been iconic in any age. Wilk handled that stable of talented hurlers like a pro, and Futterer captured him well in a late May column: “Wilkerson runs as if he needs a squirt or two of oil for his joints … [his] build for athletics is as classic as an Edsel, [he] is all the things a catcher should be. He’s a scrapper … a battler. He’s Yogi Berra with a plub of chewing tobacco.”
Tobacco? Um hm, this was 50 years ago.
Futterer kept a finger on the pulse of the team, and would appear at practices. He didn’t shy away from controversies. “The Raiders, to be sure, are confident with that confidence bordering on cockiness,” he wrote at playoff time. That rattled the ire of Raider coaches, and he wrote about that, too. He pointed out American Legion ball friction between then-coach George Whitfield and a post-season opponent that spilled over into the high school playoffs.
Alas, Bill had moved on to his next calling just before the state title series, leaving that coverage to a capable successor. But it just wasn’t the same.
Coaches Whitfield, Hal Stewart and Bobby Rainey helped ignite Raider baseball traditions from the beginning. In town recently to mark the passing of a long-ago friend, Coach Whitfield, at nearly 88, has slowed a bit, but appeared to possess more than a dollop of the grit and vinegar that long ago locals would recall. Indeed, within the past decade, he led Kinston’s Arendell Parrott Academy to a state championship. I could almost swear that had he ordered wind sprints, even today, the legs of graying former charges would begin churning.
In 2024, I am enjoying friendships among parents and grandparents watching their offspring on that same Raider diamond. I exchanged smiles and thumbs up with the parents and grandparents of Jeremiah Ritter as they witnessed their progeny turn in a sparkling inning of mound duty ahead of that March 20 rally.
It’s now Coach Brown’s turn to pass along the traditions he received from Coach Yarbrough. Brown played professionally in the Mets’ organization, as did teammate Brandon Yarbrough, a catcher for several seasons in St. Louis’s organization. Ronnie Yarbrough, I suspect, is content to shrug off his long ago playing exploits and watch Collin patrol right field alongside the likes of Jeremiah Ritter and Landon Taylor.
Doug Smith, Rockingham
