JEFFERSONVILLE —
It was the summer of 1971.
As a teenager, you thought Three Dog Night would forever rule the pop charts. You thought that by the year 2010, we’d all have flying cars.
And you never thought you’d ever see again that white pinstriped Jeffersonville High School baseball uniform you’d just turned in.
You were wrong on all three counts.
A group of Jeffersonville High School baseball coaches and parents — a booster club of sorts — recently began selling old baseball jerseys back to former players for $25 a uniform. The money raised from the sale will be used to fund the construction of a new baseball and softball training complex at Jeffersonville High School.
The uniforms — circa 1971, 1972, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1988 and 2000 — were found in a baseball storage room at Jeffersonville High School. They were used during multiple years, meaning that if you didn’t play in 1972 but you did in 1973, they might still have yours, as well.
They don’t have names on them — so you’ll have to remember your jersey number — said Kevin Burke, a member of the boosters group that’s spearheading the sale. And while there are about 125 different uniforms from over the years, they don’t have all the numbers, he said.
Boosters have been contacting old friends, gathering up contact information and relying on the social networking Web site Facebook to locate old teammates.
About 15 former players have been reunited with their old jerseys over the past few weeks. However, Burke said, organizers are hoping to sell them all and raise about $3,100 for the training complex.
“They look good,” he said, although admitting that “some of them may need to be washed.”
“The hard part is just trying to round everybody up,” said Tom Crafton, who played second base for the team between 1979 and 1982.
He’s on the boosters committee and one of those who purchased his old jersey. He said he kept everything he could from his playing days, including old photos and programs.
“There was a lot of good memories there,” Crafton said. “Just about everybody will want their jerseys.”
THE TRAINING COMPLEX
Al Rabe, JHS’ baseball coach, said the baseball and multisport facility is needed because of a crunch for athletic space at the high school — especially this time of year.
There are 18 sports at the school, including five in the winter and five in the spring, said Jeff Griffith, assistant principal and athletic director at JHS.
The baseball and softball teams are training for the upcoming season. The football team is conditioning.
Wrestling is wrapping up. And basketball continues until the late winter.
He said coaches have to do their best to schedule use of the facilities they have now.
Rabe said about 40 baseball players are throwing baseballs back and forth within a 40-foot space in one of the school’s gyms, he said.
Burke said the training complex would give the team room for players to work on hitting.
“Jeffersonville needs an indoor hitting facility,” he said. “So many schools now have this.”
The building would have batting cages, pitching machines and tees for players to work on offensive aspects of the game. For defensive enthusiasts, Burke said it also would be a place where the team could use temporary pitching mounds and it would have a turf floor for fielding practice.
Burke said the facility would be built like a pole barn, “not a Taj Mahal.” It would be about 60 feet by 100 feet in size and be built on the high school campus, near the baseball field.
Burke is hopeful the project can be completed for less than $75,000. Once the funds are raised, it would be maintained by the school corporation.
This project is completely separate from a similar proposal by the city of Jeffersonville. When Jeffersonville’s George Rogers Clark team made it to the Little League World Series in 2008 — with Burke’s son, Josh, at catcher — Mayor Tom Galligan and other city leaders expressed interest in building an indoor training facility.
City officials said recently they are still interested in pursuing such a complex, but its on hold for now.
