The Parksley Spuds was a Class D minor league baseball team based in

Parksley, Virginia Parksley is a town in Accomack County, Virginia, United States. The population was 842 at the 2010 census. It is home to the Eastern Shore Railway Museum. Geography Parksley is located at (37.785078, -75.654222). According to the United States ...

, which had a population of just over 600 people at the 1920 United States Census. They played in the

Eastern Shore League The Eastern Shore Baseball League was a class D minor league baseball league that operated on the Delmarva Peninsula for parts of three different decades. The league's first season was in 1922 and the last was in 1949, although the years were no ...

between 1922 and 1928, the entire run of the league's initial incarnation. The Spuds won multiple league pennants during that span. The league encountered financial difficulties during the 1928 season and the owners of the teams voted to disband the league. One of the notable players to appear for the Spuds was

Jimmie Foxx James Emory Foxx (October 22, 1907 – July 21, 1967), nicknamed "Double X" and "The Beast", was an American professional baseball first baseman who played 20 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Philadelphia Athletics, Boston Red Sox, ...

; he was a catcher for the team during its visit to a 1924 championship series known as the Five-State Championship. He later became a

Baseball Hall of Fame The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York, operated by private interests. It serves as the central point of the history of baseball in the United States and displays baseball-r ...

first baseman.

History

The Parksley Spuds became one of the six inaugural members of the

in 1922. The league consisted of teams from Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. The Spuds were named so for the fact that sweet potatoes were widely grown in Parksley. Parksley was home to a playing field known as the Eastern Shore League Baseball Park. The rural town of Parksley, which had a population of 607 at the 1920 census, was an unlikely candidate to host a successful baseball team. Accomack County had a population of nearly 35,000 people, but games were played during the daytime and most of the area's population worked long hours. In the 1922 season, the Spuds were managed by former minor league player John "Poke" Whalen. Parksley won the Eastern Shore League pennant. They finished with a 42–25

win–loss record In sports, a winning percentage is the fraction of games or matches a team or individual has won. The statistic is commonly used in standings or rankings to compare teams or individuals. It is defined as wins divided by the total number of match ...

, bolstered by the 15–5 record of pitcher William Klingelhoefer. The championship teams from the ESL and

Blue Ridge League The Blue Ridge League was the name of two minor league baseball organizations that operated in the first half of the twentieth century in the United States. History The first league operated for the better part of sixteen years, from 1915 throu ...

(BRL) faced each other in a playoff known as the Five-State Championship or Five-State Series. Each team in the series was allowed to add two players to its roster from other teams in its league. The Spuds faced the BRL champions, the Martinsburg Blue Sox, in the Five-State Championship that year. Martinsburg won the best-of-seven series in four games. VAMap-doton-Parksley

Ralph Mattis Ralph Mattis (August 24, 1890 – September 13, 1960), known also as Matty Mattis, was a professional baseball outfielder whose career spanned seven seasons, one of which was spent in Major League Baseball (MLB) with the Pittsburgh Rebels (1914). ...

became the

player-manager A player-coach (also playing coach, captain-coach, or player-manager) is a member of a sports team who simultaneously holds both playing and coaching duties. A player-coach may be a head coach or an assistant coach. They may make changes to the sq ...

for the Spuds in 1923. He played one more season for the team in 1924, but Whalen returned to manage the team in 1924 and 1925. The Spuds went back to the Five-State Championship in 1924, for which they added the services of future

member

, who had played for the league's Easton Farmers that season. Parksley planned to use Foxx in the outfield, but catcher Joe Tagg got sick just before the series started; Foxx batted fifth and played catcher. He registered six

runs batted in A run batted in (RBI; plural RBIs ) is a statistic in baseball and softball that credits a batter for making a play that allows a run to be scored (except in certain situations such as when an error is made on the play). For example, if the bat ...

(RBI) in the first game, which Parksley won 17–0. Foxx hit for a .391

batting average Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic. Cricket In cricket, a player's batting average is ...

and four

home run In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team. A home run i ...

s in the series, which the Spuds won four games to two. The Spuds nearly returned to the Five-State Championship in 1925, but the

Cambridge Canners Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge became ...

finished ahead of them for the Eastern Shore League pennant. Win Clark managed the 1926 Parksley team. Lester Bangs, who had managed for two years in the Class B

Virginia League The Virginia League was a minor league baseball affiliation which operated in Virginia and North Carolina from 1906 to 1928. It was classified as a "C" league from 1906 to 1919 and as a "B" league from 1920 to 1928. The most famous alumni to c ...

, was the Spuds manager in 1927. The team won its last league championship that year and beat the BRL's

Chambersburg Maroons The Chambersburg Maroons were a baseball team located in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. They called historic Henninger Field their home, and had done so since the club's creation in 1895. They played their last season in 2010, ending 116 years of ex ...

in the Five-State Championship. A man named John Pasquella took over as manager of the team in 1928;

Baseball-Reference.com Baseball-Reference is a website providing baseball statistics for every player in Major League Baseball history. The site is often used by major media organizations and baseball broadcasters as a source for statistics. It offers a variety of advan ...

does not have any biographical information about Pasquella other than his position as manager of the 1928 Parksley team. Facing declining attendance figures, Eastern Shore League officials voted to disband the league in July 1928, cancelling all of the statistics from that season.Lambert, p. 9 Two other iterations of the league existed in the 1930s and 1940s, but Parksley did not field a team in the league after 1928.

Notes

References

* *{{cite book, last1=Savitt, first1=Robert, title=The Blue Ridge League, year=2011, publisher=

Arcadia Publishing Arcadia Publishing is an American publisher of neighborhood, local, and regional history of the United States in pictorial form.(analysis of the successful ''Images of America'' series). Arcadia Publishing also runs the History Press, which publi ...

, isbn=978-0738582399, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L260J2VN944C Defunct minor league baseball teams Defunct baseball teams in Virginia Professional baseball teams in Virginia Defunct Eastern Shore League teams Baseball teams established in 1922 Baseball teams disestablished in 1928 Accomack County, Virginia