Four scrapbooks featuring baseball players who went into the big leagues from Wayne County are now online on DigitalNC.
From Sunday Star Sports, a Washington, D.C. paper on April 17, 1949. President Harry Truman threw the opening pitch at the game that day.
Two of the scrapbooks feature Ray Scarborough (1917-1982), a pitcher from Mount Olive, NC who played for the Chicago White Sox, Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Detroit Tigers, and Washington Senators, and he served as a scout for the Baltimore Orioles. During his time on the Yankees, they went to the 1952 World Series and Scarborough was a scout with the Orioles when they went to the World Series in 1966. The scrapbooks have a mix of materials from his baseball career and as a boy growing up in Wayne County and as a student at Wake Forest University. The materials in the scrapbook are a mix of photographs, letters, and newspaper clippings and cover the 1940s through 1980s.
Tim Talton and his rival for top batting average in the Eastern League Pedro Gonzalez in 1960.
The other two scrapbooks feature Marion (Tim) Talton of Pikeville, N.C., who played as catcher for the minor league teams the St. Cloud Rox in Fargo, ND and the Springfield Giants in Springfield, MA. Known for his exceptional hitting, Talton had the second highest batting average in the Eastern League in 1960 with a .331. One scrapbook covers his time on the St. Cloud Rox in 1959 and the other, his time on the Giants in 1960. Talton moved up to the major leagues in 1966 and played for the Kansas City Athletics.
The scrapbooks were made available through Wayne County Public Library. To view more baseball materials in DigitalNC, visit here.
