July 6, 2024
Neil Rudel
President, Executive Committee
P.O. Box 162
Altoona, PA 16603
Dear Neil:
My son, Jon, and I, would like to nominate a team for consideration in the next Blair County Sports Hall of Fame class, which is set to be inducted on Saturday, April 11, 2026.
I have the memory while Jon does all of the research.
In 1957, the same year that Altoona’s entry won the National Amateur Baseball Federation tournament at the old Cricket Field in Altoona, becoming the third team inducted into the Blair County Sports Hall of Fame, another Blair County youth team also competed in a national baseball tournament hosted in Pennsylvania.
Hershey – and Hershey Park, specifically – was the site of the Tyrone Teener / Blair County All-Stars advancing to the championship game of the VFW National Teener Tournament where they lost to a team from the Panama Canal Zone.
While the team was mostly labeled in media coverage as Tyrone, it featured 16 players from four different Blair County communities.
Tyrone, likely as a result of winning the regular season Southern Blair Teener League title with a perfect 13-0 mark, was represented by seven players.
Martinsburg had four while Hollidaysburg and Altoona rounded out the roster with three and two players, respectively.
Tyrone’s Roger Branstetter, an executive with the Chicago Machine and Rivet Company in Tyrone, was the manager of the All-Star squad with Elmer Kirkpatrick from Tyrone and Merle Carper from Martinsburg as his coaches.
Regular season play began on Tuesday, May 28 with games scheduled weekly on Tuesday and Thursday.
While a 20-game schedule was slated from the onset, the last set of standings that appeared in the Altoona Tribune on Friday, July 19, 1957 saw Tyrone listed with a perfect 13-0 mark, followed by Altoona at 9-4, Hollidaysburg at 7-6 and Martinsburg at 4-7 while Claysburg was 4-10 and Newry 1-11.
The Blair County All-Stars opened the Area 5 VFW Teener baseball playoffs with a 19-0 rout of Gallitzin on Wednesday, July 24 at Athletic Park in Tyrone.
Backed by a 17-hit attack led by Martinsburg’s Reagan Carper, who had four of them, Tyrone’s Jon Stroup went the distance for the two-hit shutout and helped himself out in the bottom of the fourth with a grand slam.
Branstetter turned the ball over to Altoona’s Bob Burke the next evening, Thursday, July 25, in Ashville who tossed his own two-hitter.
Fellow Altoona youngster Bob Hansard had three hits and drove in three runs in the All-Stars’ 12-2 win over Gallitzin.
The district playoffs moved to Juniata College on Monday, July 29, as the Blair County squad opened a three-game series against the Huntingdon Teener League All-Stars.
With Stroup back on the mound, Blair County raced out to a 9-3 lead in the first three innings, but Huntingdon chased him from the game with three in the fourth and then added five more in the next two against three Blair County pitchers to even the score at 11-all after six when the game was called due to darkness.
The two teams returned to Huntingdon at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 30.
Tyrone’s Dave Getz, who threw the sixth inning in Monday’s game, threw a three-hit shutout with six strikeouts for the 12-0 win that featured a bases clearing double by Tyrone’s Bob Clites as part of a seven-run seventh inning.
The Blair County All-Stars completed the two-game sweep on Wednesday, July 31 at Tyrone’s Athletic Park with a 20-hit attack for a 12-4 win.
Carper once again had four hits from the leadoff position while Stroup bounced back, stranding six hits in the victory.
The Tyrone Teener All-Stars – the name used at the state and national tournaments – traveled to Chester, opening the tournament on Thursday, August 8 with a 13-5 win over Carrick.
Hollidaysburg’s Robert Nassif led the 14-hit barrage with three of his own – two for home runs – and five runs batted in.
Tyrone drew a gritty Mechanicsburg club on Friday, August 9 that played the All-Stars to a 3-all contest through nine innings. Hansard had four hits including a two-run bases loaded single that drove in two as part of a four-run top of the tenth inning effort that paced a 7-3 win.
Getz struck out 10 and went the distance to put Tyrone in the championship game against Uniontown on Saturday, August 10.
The All-Stars replicated Friday’s score with a 7-3 victory that saw Getz throwing another complete game win by striking out 10 and earning state tournament MVP honors. Three players had two hits apiece to support Getz’s victory.
After being feted with an impromptu parade through Tyrone Saturday evening, the All-Stars headed out to Hershey Sunday evening for a Monday, August 12 matchup against Aztec, New Mexico.
Jon Stroup was back on the mound for Blair County and earned a 10-0, one-hit shutout, but wasn’t without the challenge of giving up six bases on balls. Fortunately for Tyrone, New Mexico committed eight errors in the field in addition to their seven hits.
Bob Feller was the guest speaker Monday evening for a dinner for all teams at the Hershey Park Golf Club, and the next day, Tuesday, August 13, against Chicago Heights, Illinois, Tyrone’s Getz took the inspiration and delivered a one-hit shutout.
Tyrone, though, escaped with a 6-4 win after committing six errors that contributed to a four-run third inning allowing Chicago Heights to tie the score before Pennsylvania won it with two in the top of the seventh inning.
Stroup was back on Wednesday, August 14, to face off against Beatrice, Nebraska and even though he walked another six batters, Tyrone kept Nebraska off the scoreboard until the seventh inning for the 7-2 win behind Stroup’s three-hitter.
Tyrone won it in the top of the fourth inning with five runs, keyed by Hansard’s steal of home for the first score.
After a day off, the National Championship game was played on Friday, August 16 and saw the Panama Canal Zone team get five-hit pitching from Chico Martin and took advantage of six Pennsylvania errors for a humbling 11-1 win.
Stroup started the game, walked four batters and left the game in the third inning with the bases loaded when the Canal Zone’s Dick Vinus greeted Getz with a bases-clearing triple to give Panama a 4-0 lead after three innings.
However, the errors paved the way for a seven-run bottom of the sixth inning for Panama – and the win.
Stroup, though, was awarded the tournament’s Most Valuable Player award and was given an autographed Brooklyn Dodgers baseball by their scout Marty Jones.
Three years later, Getz would sign with Philadelphia and spend four seasons in the Phillies system. But after a sub-par 1963 season at AA Chattanooga in the South Atlantic League, Philadelphia sold his contract to the New York Mets, who released him after a month of spring training in 1964.
One of the starters, Jan Dannaway, would later move from Tyrone to Wilmington, Delaware where he would attend then brand-new Brandywine High School, where his father was the golf coach and the JV football coach. He would compete in three sports – football, wrestling and baseball, before hitting .364 in 11 games for Fairmont, W. Va. State. He would transfer to Ole Miss, was a classmate of James Meredith and played baseball for the Rebels before earning an MBA. He was in the athletic department of the University of Arkansas – Little Rock for many years and was inducted into the AHSAA (Arkanas) Officials Hall of Fame in 2019.
Another starter, Skip Hughes, of Hollidaysburg, likely believe to have been \the son of then St. Francis College men’s head basketball coach, William “Skip” Hughes, who won 20 or more games five times with a career mark of 293-206-1 and was credited with recruiting Maurice Stokes to Loretto from Westinghouse High School in Pittsburgh. He is a member of both the Pennsylvania and Blair County Sports Halls of Fames.
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All of the above came from editions of the Tyrone Daily Herald and the Altoona Tribune.
The Altoona Mirror isn’t available in newspapers.com, whereas the other two are.
In 1957 I was 10 years old playing Little League Baseball in Tyrone.
I remember as this team advanced my Dad telling me that if the team made it to Hershey, we would go to the championship game and we did.
Years later I was able to play Greater City League Baseball with Bobby Clites and Charlie Kirkpatrick, two of the Tyrone players from that team.
As we got older, Bobby and I played a lot of softball together.
Unfortunately, both have since passed so not able to discuss more with them for this nomination.
I did find out the other day that Jon Stroup’s son is still living in Tyrone and Roger Branstetter’s son is also still living in the Tyrone area out near Warrior’s Mark.
Jon did a few hours’ research and this is what we feel like we can confirm:
George Myers, Martinsburg (Brother, Jim (younger), passed away on December 13, 2022)
John Ayers, Martinsburg (Wife, Judith, passed away on February 18, 2022)
Roger Branstetter, manager, Tyrone (
1919-1996)
Skip Hughes, Hollidaysburg
Robert Nassif, Hollidaysburg
Dave Getz, Tyrone
Lowell Richey, Martinsburg
Robert Burke, Altoona
If there are no dates listed above, it is assumed that they’re still living or some of the names are too common to find any identifying information on them currently.
We look now to you Neil for your advice, thoughts and direction about proceeding with this nomination.
Thanks,
Will
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