1954 Baseball Season

Front Row: Coach Shapiro; Corlew; Suter; Whitacre; Harrison; Grant; Greenbaum; French: Second Row: Parsons; Christian; Kelly; Orecchio; Johnson; Derryberry; Lewis; DuBose.

 In 1953 the West High baseball team lost a close game in the finals of the state tournament. With many of the players on that team returning in 1954 hopes were high for another trophy to go with the state championship the basketball team had just won.

The combination of returning players and new additions blended together well and the Blue Jays were undefeated in the regular season. A 4-3 win over East for the Nashville Interscholastic League (NIL) title provided a major sports (basketball and baseball) winning streak of 30 games. West High's tradition of basketball excellence was well known, but this was their first NIL baseball title.

The first game in the midstate tournament was an extra inning affair. The basketball team had pulled out four overtime victories on their way to the state championship, but the magic ran out against Tullahoma 9-8. When a West High fan commented to Joe Shapiro "Bad luck, Coach", Shapiro replied " Yes, but we've had an awful  lot of good luck this year."  

West High, class of '54 had closed their major sports season with 50 wins, 6 losses, and 1 tie. It was a remarkable team effort by a relatively small number of athletes some of who had been playing together since grammar school and junior high. As reported by Nashville Banner sportswriter Edgar Allen it it was a "Mark Unequaled in NIL Annals."

Individual honors went to Gailor Justice, an All-City selection in football; Ralph Greenbaum, Jimmy French, and Buddy Parsons on tournament basketball all star teams; and Jimmy Lewis, the dominant pitcher in Nashville high school baseball for the second straight year.  

Powered by Anything Email