Tombstone
Born: 1934
Folded: July 14, 1955
First Game:
Last Game:
Piedmont League Champions: 1934, 1936, 1937, 1943, 1951, 1953
Stadia
1934-1940: Bain Field
1940-1955: High Rock Park AKA Myers Field
Ownership & Affiliation
Owners:
- ????-1953: New York Yankees
- 1954-1955: Earl Harper, et al.
Major League Affiliation: New York Yankees
Editor's Pick
Baseball in Norfolk, Virginia
Images of Baseball
By Clay Shampoe & Thomas R. Garrett
The story of baseball in Norfolk, Virginia is as fascinating and enduring as the game itself. Christy Mathewson, Phil Rizzuto, Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra, and a myriad of other charismatic players from the game spent time developing their raw and untested skills on the diamonds of Norfolk. Military stars of the powerful World War II Navy teams and legends of the Negro Leagues performed to the delight and fascination of local fans.
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Background
The Norfolk Tars were a Virginia-based farm club of the New York Yankees for 22 seasons between 1934 and 1955. The team was part of the Class B Piedmont League, traditionally composed of clubs from North Carolina and Virginia. During the 1950’s, the league grew to include ball clubs from Maryland and Pennsylvania.
Road To The Bronx
Many future Yankee greats passed through Norfolk en route to the Bronx. Often they were teenagers, signed out of high school. Yogi Berra was 18 in 1943. Future Hall-of-Famer Whitey Ford was only 19 when he went 16-8 for the Tars in the summer of 1948. Bobby Richardson was just 17 when he played for Norfolk in 1953. He was the last major Yankees star developed by the Tars.
- Phil Rizzuto (Tars ’38)
- Yogi Berra (Tars ’43)
- Whitey Ford(Tars ’48)
- Whitey Herzog (Tars ’51)
- Bill Skowron (Tars ’51)
- Bill Virdon (Tars ’51)
- Bobby Richardson(Tars ’53)
Piedmont League Powerhouse
The Tars won eight Piedmont League pennants and six playoff championships in twenty-two seasons. They were especially dominant in the 1950’s finishing first in four straight pennants from 1951 to 1954.
The 1952 Tars club was 96-36 in the regular season and won the pennant by 26.5 games. In 2001, the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, governing body of Minor League Baseball, ranked the 1952 Tars #34 on their list of the 100 Greatest Minor League Teams of All Time.
Jim Crow & The Tars
Both the Tars and their ballpark, Myers Field (formerly High Rock Park), were racially segregated until 1954. African-American fans were only permitted to watch from the “colored grandstand”, a separate and inferior seating area, and there were no players of color on the team. In 1953, black fans organized a season-long boycott of the Tars. Two other nearby Piedmont League teams, the Newport News Dodgers and Portsmouth Merrimacs, had already de-segregated their ballparks. Norfolk’s black fans travelled to support those teams instead in 1953.
In December 1953, the Yankees sold the Tars to radio station executive Earl Harper and his syndicate for a reported $25,000. The new ownership group retained a working agreement to serve as a Yankees farm club. In early 1954, the Yankees assigned pitcher Ed Andrews to Norfolk as the Tars’ first black ballplayer. The 20-year old went 5-2 with a 3.91 ERA for Norfolk in 1954.
An April 7, 1954 exhibition between the Tars and the New York Yankees drew a racially mixed crowd of over 8,000 to Myers Field. It was the first integrated event at Norfolk’s ballpark.
Demise
After a brief post-war boom, minor league baseball was in decline across the country by the early 1950’s. Despite four consecutive pennants from 1951 to 1954, Tars attendance was bleak by the mid-50’s. The club ran out of money midway through the 1955 campaign. A capital campaign to raise $20,000 to help the Tars see through the season fell short. The Tars pulled out of the Piedmont League in midseason on July 14, 1955.
The Piedmont League itself closed its doors in February 1956 after 36 seasons.
Trivia
21-year old Joe Buzas played third base for the Tars during the summer of 1941. His Major League career amounted to only 30 games. But he went on to become perhaps the most prolific and influential minor league baseball investors of all time. He operated countless minor league clubs between the 1950’s and his death in 2003 (Wikipedia claims the number was 82).
Links
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5 Responses
In 1955 attendance fell precipitously to less than half the 1954 average, which had been the team’s best since 1949: https://www.statscrew.com/minorbaseball/t-nt13395
https://books.google.com/books/about/Baseball_in_Portsmouth_Virginia.html?id=9HmpLWvoEfkC great book with amazing photos features ex Yankee John Malangone
I have a signed Joe Dimmagio ball that my dad gave me when I was very young. My recollection of how he got it was that he was a batboy and Joe came thru Norfolk and played as a part of the yankees. I thought the Tides were involved…but the Tars timeline fits when my dad would have been a boy himself. Can you tell me if Joe ever came through Norfolk to play ? and if so what were the circumstances and the year. The ball is one of my cherished possessions and I am curious about the story of it. Sadly my dad is not around anymore to help. I am hoping some one can. Thank in advance for your help
Hey Ron, don’t remember if Joe played in Norfolk or not. My grandfather Linwood Gray was Secretary/ Treasurer of the team for years. I can remember him counting money. I sat in press box and watched games. Big fun. My uncle Buddy Gray was bat boy for a while.
My father played for the Tars in 1949 as part of the Yankees organization. I’m on the hunt to find any photos of him from his past.