Meridian High Wildcats '58: BASEBALL RESULTS 1958

A Tribute and Celebration

We were the class of 1958, members of the Greatest Generation as well as children of the Greatest Generation. Born in 1940, we are also called members of the Traditional Generation.
Our childhood, post World War II, "was the best of times . . . it was the age of wisdom . . . it was the epoch of belief . . .it was the season of Light . . . it was the spring of hope . . . we had everything before us . . .we were all going direct to Heaven . . . ." (A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens.) At least, that's the way I felt about it. We were truly blessed.
- Ouida Tomlinson -
This blog is a place for 1958 graduates of Meridian, Mississippi, High School to stay in touch, post their news, items of interest and photographs.
CLASS OF 1958 MEMORIES (Click to read all posts relating to sports, honors, graduation and other memories of our class in 1957-58.)
FACEBOOK PAGE FOR CLASS OF 1958
https://www.facebook.com/groups/MHS58/

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Sunday, May 23, 2010

BASEBALL RESULTS 1958

Dick Smith's editorial outlined his predictions about our spring sports teams' chances. Now we need to find out how things turned out. Fifty years ago, remember that examinations were coming up, term papers were due, people were trying to pass something, graduation parties were underway and proms were held. We were almost as busy then as we are now, but we were still playing sports for school honors. Based on some newspaper and Wildcat articles and current emails from class, this is what we know:

Meridian High School Baseball

Meridian won the 1957 High School State Championship. That is when our classmates were juniors, but there were many from our class who played on the championship team. That team picture is in our 1958 annual, however, we are including a team picture here so that it can be downloaded into personal computers.

There were several returning baseball players from the 1957 team to the senior team. Players are identified in the annual, but basic starters on the state team were Oliver Buntin, Richard Clayton, Larry Quimby, Louis Thompson, Will Hudson, Frankie Brewer, James Tillman, Jerry White and Selby Salters.

The second picture is of the 1958 team, our senior year. This photo is with the rest in the slideshow.

We did get to the regional baseball finals in 1958 and played for the South State title against Jackson Murrah High School. As mentioned in Dick Smith's article, the Jackson pitcher, Guy Parker, was able to pitch for two or three consecutive games against Meridian and held our team to very few hits. It was a challenge for us to score runs and although our field play held them to low scoring, we did lose the regional final to Jackson. Jackson apparently went on to win the state championship the next week with Guy Parker's pitching.

Starting players on our 1958 team were Oliver Buntin, Elmer Knight, Louis Thompson, Freddie Schoenrock, Will Hudson, Jerry Yarbrough, R. V. Skelton, Burton Gray, and Sonny Farr. James Watson, Marty Kogan, Bobby Satcher, Gayle Wardlowe, and James Warren were also from our class.