RCBL Hall of Fame Class of 2016
Special thanks to Lauren Jefferson (HOF Class of 2017) for researching, writing, and producing player biographies.
James Henry “John” Armentrout
James Henry “John” Armentrout started with Keezletown in 1940 and won a championship the following year. After military service during World War II, he returned to Keezletown, and played for a short time at Grottoes with his brother Ozzie. When he and his family purchased a home in the Gravels area, he went to Linville and brought along his other brother Harry, who is probably the most famous person in the family. As we all know Harry would wear a bonnet and climb the fence and cheer on Linville. Sometimes he used to do this with a little dog in his arms. Some games, he would bring two bonnets and his brother John would wear one while coaching third base.
At Linville, John was primarily an infielder. He also managed the team and was known as a peacemaker on the Linville team, which had a lot of players with a lot of opinions about the right and wrong way to play ball. He had a deep respect and love for baseball, and was a role model for young players and for many who went on to coach young athletes. John ended his career more than 20 years later as manager of Twin County from 1966 to 1969. He was honored with the league’s lifetime achievement award in 1975 by his good friend and commissioner Karl Oschofka. John Armentrout joins his brother Ozzie and nephew Buck Harrison in the Hall of fame. |
Jack Bocock
Jack Bocock was a standout athlete at Harrisonburg High School, where he was one of the fastest sprinters in the Valley. After two years in the Air Force, he played with the Turks in the Valley League for several years. With the County League, he played for Linville, which is where his sons and daughters remember seeing him play when they weren’t chasing foul balls.
Mike Bocock remembers waiting for the sight of his dad, coming home from work and driving by the house to pick up milk at a nearby farm. A few minutes later, Jack would return with the milk, grab a bite to eat, change into his uniform, and then jump back into the station wagon, crammed with kids, as Mike says, to head to the ball field. He never forced his love for sports on his children and they tagged along willingly. He and his wife Cricket were regular presences at all six childrens’ various endeavors. Jack coached his sons in Little League and later managed them at Bridgewater for three years. His legacy lives on his children and grandchildren, of whom have more accomplishments and ties to athletics than we can mention here. Tim and Tom are Hall of Fame members. Daughters Kathy and Suzie both coach softball. Grandsons and granddaughters are athletes, former athletes, and coaches. At one point, three grandsons —Kevin, Brian and Tyler— played for the Reds after collegiate and professional careers. Mike Bocock, the league’s commissioner at the time and a 2016 inductee into the charter class of the Valley League Hall of Fame, accepted the award on his father’s behalf. |
Gene Clatterbuck
Gene Clatterbuck was devoted to the RCBL from his start in the league as a 14-year-old with Keezletown to his death while league commissioner at age 69. Over a span of nearly 55 years, he was a player, coach, manager, umpire, head umpire, scorekeeper, announcer, secretary of the league, vice commissioner, and finally, at the time of his death, commissioner. Gene played four seasons in the Valley League, and spent time at Keezletown, Bridgewater and Linville, primarily as a pitcher.
He coached the Harrisonburg Chics and managed Briery Branch during the early ‘90s, where he urged a new name and field improvements at the Montezuma ballpark. His son Neil also jokes that his dad was a huge financial supporter of the league, and he should also be going into the hall for the number of 50-50s he won over the years. |
Neil Clatterbuck
Neil Clatterbuck’s RCBL career spanned more than 20 years, starting with Linville in high school in the early 80s and concluding with Broadway in 2004. He helped Linville to championships in 1987 and 2000 and Grottoes in 1996, and was league MVP in 1999. He played an important role as a player and manager, sometimes in tandem with his father Gene, in providing leadership and a steady presence for struggling clubs or clubs that were forming.
He is probably the most traveled RCBL Hall of Famer: he played for Harrisonburg, Linville, Clover Hill, Grottoes, Briery Branch and Broadway. He was instrumental in improving the Montezuma and Broadway High ballparks, and helped to keep the historic Linville field in use as long as circumstances allowed. Primarily a catcher, Neil played anywhere and everywhere he was needed with a passion for the game and for the league. |
Leewood Davis
Leewood Davis played 22 years in the County League, starting as an 18-year-old with Bridgewater in the early ‘60s, then moving to the ACs the next year, Elkton, Linville, back to the ACs, and Shenandoah. Some of those moves came as teams folded and restarted. He was named to the All-Star team 15 times out of 22 years.
In 1975, while at Linville, he was league MVP. He primarily played first base. In 1982, he helped Shenandoah to the series final against Clover Hill. He retired two years later in 1984. He says he most enjoyed his time at Linville. Teammate Steve Lough mentioned that Leewood was one of the more quiet players at Linville, “pretty odd behavior on that team.” Leewood says during the famous fights that broke out between archrivals Linville and Clover Hill, he’d just try to hide somewhere and wait for the game to start again.” Despite the tension between the two clubs, he struck up a friendship with Clover Hill pitcher Fred Hill and it was Fred who said of Leewood that he was a “great hitter, a great competitor and a great sportsman and you can double underline that last one.” |
Leighton Evans
Back in 2012 when Lauren Jefferson first started researching the charter class, someone said she should go talk to Leighton Evans. This led to a two-hour conversation about everything baseball, sitting in his truck outside the Green Valley Book Fair. Four years later, when he became an inductee, his pre-induction interview took about 3.5 hours. His good friend Mike Schickman, who was the honorary keynote speaker at the 2016 induction, brought a hook with him in case Leighton’s acceptance speech went a little too long.
Leighton is well-known as a big baseball fan, and especially a fan of the RCBL then and now. He has been an especially stalwart supporter of the league since his playing days, from 1953 to 1962 at Bridgewater, Grottoes and Clover Hill. He won 62 games over those years, averaging eight wins a season in the years he pitched regularly. In 1956, he pitched 91 innings with 81 strikeouts, and may be the only pitcher in the league to win three games in a full seven-game championship series, only to lose to Grottoes. In that series, he walked only one batter in 36 innings pitched. He won two pennants with Bridgewater, a 1955 championship with Clover Hill, and a pennant with Bridgewater in 1958. In 2004, he was presented with the “Buck Bowman Recognition Award” for his career achievements. |
Jason Griffin
Jason Griffin played with Clover Hill from 1995-2007. Along with Tom Bocock, he is one of the two most decorated players in league history. During his career, Jason earned four honors: Most Valuable Pitcher in 1995, 1997 and 2004, and Most Valuable Player honors in 1997. He and Tom Bocock share another distinction of being the only three RCBL athletes to earn both Most Valuable Pitcher and Most Valuable Player awards.
He is the only player to have been awarded both MVP awards in a season (Fred Hill also achieved this, but was co-Pitcher of the Year). The fact that these honors came over a span of 10 seasons is also noteworthy. No player has ever been recognized in that long a time span. Jason helped Clover Hill to four pennants and five series wins. At the time of his induction, both his son and daughter had played on state championship Little League baseball and softball teams, respectively, and Jason was working as a pitching coach with the Harrisonburg Turks. |
Gene “Geno” Hill
Gene “Geno” Hill played in the Augusta County League before coming to Briery Branch in 1967, thanks to a friendship with Bud Sheffer. The years of his playing career were difficult to track down but he played into to the late ‘70s, with at least the last two seasons of his career at Twin County. He was an excellent utility player and is remembered for his superior hitting abilities, which resulted in at least one home run at Clover Hill that may have rivaled Griff Gilkerson’s long ball record.
Gene was named to several All-Star teams as early as 1967, when he led the league in homeruns. He was MVP of the 1972 All-Star team and on the ’73 All-County League team that played for against the Apple Valley’s All-Stars. He won the batting title in 1974, hitting .400 for the season. |
Ray Lynn Heatwole
Ray Lynn Heatwole played nine years for Bridgewater. “I can definitely say I’m not going into the Hall because of my playing abilities,” he has said. Several of his teammates and former opponents say otherwise.
Regardless of who is right, he became a great student of the game and made his mark in coaching area athletes. “There is not one man that has influenced area baseball as much as Ray Heatwole has in this Shenandoah Valley,” said then RCBL commissioner Mike Bocock. The number of athletes that he has coached who have played and continue to play in the RCBL must be in the hundreds. He led Turner Ashby High School to three Group AA state championships, six regional and 11 district titles. He also coached for eight years at James Madison University and was the pitching coach at Bridgewater College for four seasons. A short list of other honors includes induction into the Bridgewater College Hall of Fame, the Turner Ashby Hall of Fame, and the Virginia High School League Hall of Fame in 2015. If you were ever coached by Ray Heatwole, you know the relationship doesn’t end when you no longer play for him. He continues to coach and mentor athletes today, and during the spring and summer, you’re likely to see him at any local game on the schedule. |
Daryl Lambert
Daryl Lambert was the rarely gifted five-tool player, one of the best athletes in the Shenandoah Valley. Born and raised in Mount Sidney, he joined Grottoes while he was still in college and played there from 1988 to 1996, earning MVP honors three times: in 1991, sharing the honor with Clint Curry in 1993, and then again in 1994. Hall of Famer inductee Pat Shiflet, who played for Bridgewater, described watching Daryl play for the first time: “He hits a single to left, steals second, steals third, scores. The next at-bat, he lays a drag bunt down, beats it out, steals second. Next at-bat, he hits a home run. I was in awe. There was no one like him in the County League.”
Pat said he always wanted to just tell whoever fielded a ball that Daryl hit to just hold onto and let Daryl get to third because he would was going to get there anyway. We don’t have any records for stolen bases, but it’s probably a good bet that Daryl Lambert holds that record. For the last 22 years, he coached baseball at Fort Defiance High School with his former coach Vic Spotts. Daryl is a member of Eastern Mennonite University’s Hall of Honor, where he shares the distinction, with MLB catcher Erik Kratz, of being the only two baseball players whose jerseys have been retired in the history of the athletic program. |
Herman McCarthy
Herman McCarthy is remembered as one of the RCBL’s best pitchers and wonderful characters. Herman played more than 20 years of baseball in the Valley, except for few times when he got frustrated and quit. The McCarthy home was adjacent to the old Grottoes stadium, and Herman would go home after a really bad game and throw his jersey over the fence on the field. He’d eventually go back and pick it up.
Herman’s first year in the RCBL was said to be 1957 at Keezletown. He then moved to Grottoes, where he played the age of 49, retiring in 1981. His daughters have fond memories of watching their dad play (and throw his uniform back onto the field, too). From 1974 to 1977, he played with the Harrisonburg ACs. He made five series appearances, and won three championship series, all with Grottoes in 1966, 1969 and 1971. Herman threw at least two no-hitters, both against Briery Branch, and had a near-perfect game against Linville in 1979, walking one batter in the sixth inning. He was a consistent All-Star selection, and was recognized for his career achievements at the All-Star Game in 2004. |
Gene Peterson
Gene Peterson came to Clover Hill from Madison College and made Buck Bowman Park his baseball home for 13 years, from 1970 to 1983. He was the league’s Most Valuable Pitcher in 1971, shared the honor with Larry Erbaugh in 1978 and earned it again in 1979. This collection puts him in an unusual category, with fellow inductee Jason Griffin, of being the only two pitchers to have earned their first and final awards in a span of so many years.
In 1974, he became one of a select group of pitchers to have thrown a no-hitter in the league. With Clover Hill, he captured three season pennants and competed in six series championships, winning twice in 1975 and 1976. In 1976 and 1982, Clover Hill won both the pennant and the series. There have been only five people who are not natives to this area named to the Hall of Fame. Karl Olschofka, Jim Nichols, Mel Morris, Jason Griffin and now Gene Peterson. |
Jay Shoemaker
At seven years old, Jay Shoemaker kept the scoreboard for the Linville Valley League team. He was so small that he had to run alongside someone bigger and stronger who would carry out the cards out to the scoreboard. At eight, he graduated to selling peanuts and popcorn, then hot dogs and then Coca cola. His dad would take him to the game and then stay and sit at the third-base line to watch the game.
When Jay started playing, he could always look to see his dad there. Jay began his career in the Valley League and the Twin County League before joining Linville in 1958. A catcher and a pitcher, he helped Linville to three consecutive series championships from 1959 to 1961 and one pennant win in 1960. In the years of Harriston’s domination from 1965-1971, Linville challenged them in the championships five times. He was there for 16 seasons and played one season at Briery Branch in 1974. |