Tombstone
Born: 1964
Re-Branded: February 15, 1969 (Peninsula Astros)1Moskowitz, Bob. “Grays Gone! They’re In Orbit”. The Daily Press (Newport News, VA). February 16, 1969
First Game:
Last Game:
Carolina League Championships: None
Stadium
Ownership & Affiliation
Owners: Peninsula Baseball Club, Inc. (Vic Zodda, William Van Buren Jr., et al.)
Major League Affiliations:
- 1964-1966: Cincinnati Reds
- 1967: Kansas City A’s
- 1968: Oakland A’s
Background
The Peninsula Grays were a Class A Carolina League ball club out of Hampton, Virginia during the mid-1960’s.
The team’s best season in the standings came in the summer of 1965. As a farm club of the Cincinnati Reds, the Grays won the Carolina League’s East Division with an 86-58 record. But their most interesting year, roster-wise, was the following summer when Cincinnati sent a trio of top prospects to the Virginia peninsula: 18-year olds Johnny Bench and Bernie Carbo and 20-year outfielder Hal McRae. All would become Major League stars of the 1970’s, with Bench earning entry to the Hall-of-Fame.
Satchel Paige Appearance
On June 21st, 1966, 59-year old* Satchel Paige took the mound for the Grays against the Greensboro Yankees. The move was a publicity stunt by Grays General Manager Marshall Fox and it worked. A much larger than usual crowd of 3,118 came out to War Memorial Stadium to watch the legend work. Paige pitched two innings before giving way to scheduled starter Steve Mingori. They were the final two innings of professional work in Paige’s singular career.
In 1967 the Grays became a Kansas City Athletics farm club. Future All-Stars Darrell Evans (Peninsula ’67) and Gene Tenace (Peninsula ’67-’68) played in Hampton during the Athletics era. Tenace would go on to be Most Valuable Player of the World Series for the Oakland A’s in 1972.
The Houston Astros took over as Peninsula’s parent club in 1969 and changed the team’s name to the Peninsula Astros.
*59-ish
Peninsula Grays Shop
Links
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3 Responses
I was in the Grey’s outfield stands that time Satchel Paige pitched. I remember one event during that last Paige professional appearance: a powerful hitter (I forget who) came up for the other team and was swinging for a homer against the elderly but well-known Paige.
Paige threw him one of his signature trick pitches: he pitched overhand a towering, slow pitch — higher than a slow-pitch softball pitch — and the over-confident batter leaned back to knock the lazy ball over the fence (a ball amazingly still coming right down into the batter’s box!)
As Paige expected, the batter, his timing of course thrown off badly by the ball’s lack of speed, swung mightily, but he struck out to the great glee of us Grey’s fans.
Satchel then turned away from home, and could not help smiling broadly to himself, politely not gloating where anyone — but we in the cheap seats — might see. Wow!
My dad used to carry me to see the baby dodgers at the stadium back in late forties early fifties-when chuck connors-charlite neal-gil hodges duke synder played-it was great
My father was Marshall Fox and we had Satchel Paige for dinner at our home the night beforethis historical game.