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Early Baseball Gilboa-Conesville Central School

Lincoln Faulkner

I was one of eight siblings growing up on the family farm on Durham Road going out of Manorkill, part of the Susquehanna Trail. My eldest brother, Elwood, was the best ball player on our family ball team but he hurt his shoulder in a motorcycle accident and never did play competitive ball.

The first Gilboa-Conesville Central School ball team was fielded in 1933 or 1934. Clayton (the second oldest) was the first Faulkner to play for GCCS. However, times were tough and the team could not afford to provide mitts for lefties (a right-handed player would wear the glove on the left hand and throw the ball with the right). Clayton, a lefty, had to field the ball like a righty, take the mitt off his left hand and then throw the ball.

Clayton, the first Faulkner to play for GCCS, was a lefty. At that time (as here), he would field the ball like a righty, take the mitt off his left hand and use it to throw the ball.

I was in grade eight when the war started, and I served as the manager for the ball team. The manager’s job was to do all the chores that no one else wanted to do: lining out the field, placing the bases, filling holes in the field, setting up the pitcher’s mound and home plate; if the field was wet, you tried to drain it so it was playable; and most importantly you were responsible for carrying the bag of bats and other equipment to the game. In Gilboa, this meant climbing the hill behind the school and then out to the field.

Baseballs at that time were very valuable items—you would never give up on a lost ball as you might nowadays. Any lost ball would immediately stop the game and everyone would search for the ball. In higher grass, you would lie down and start to roll where you thought the ball might be. Rolling over a lump in the grass was a good thing, for then the game could continue.

Most balls were made like my father did it: take the strings from feed bags and roll them tightly up into a ball. Then, when the ball was about the right size, he used friction tape to wrap around the ball as a protective skin (friction tape was black electrical tape but did not have the elasticity of today’s version—it actually felt more like today’s adhesive tape but would leave a residue on your hands).

A lot of people practiced batting at home. I would throw the ball up onto the roof of the barn, and then try to hit the ball when it fell off the roof. I would make sure to hit the ball against the side of the barn if possible, because a hit over or around the barn might well result in a long roll in the grass. At that time, my father and I disagreed as to which was a worse disaster: broken siding on the barn or a lost ball.

Practices were held after school, causing you to miss your bus home—like the old story, it was uphill both ways. My trip was about 10 miles, and some players would not stay for practice because it was too difficult to get home. Many tried to hitchhike but there was not much traffic in those years, and many cars would not stop to pick up a group of 5 or 6 young men.

Most of the uniforms were made out of wool or a wool-blend material, and were uncomfortable on a hot sunny day. The caps had a small brim and weren’t nearly as full as today’s ball caps, and there was no manufactured protection for pitchers or catchers who had to protect themselves.

The gloves were much smaller: a glove for a first baseman was about half the length and much narrower than today’s mitt, and gloves for in-and out-fielders were a reinforced leather work glove. They did not come with pockets, so players would keep oiling the glove, bend it into shape around a baseball, and leave it tied up overnight with twine to shape the mitt to their specifications.

There was no formal schedule for games early in the war due to rationing of gasoline. Coaches for the various schools would call each other and arrange a game when they could arrange transport. A small bus might be used to take the team to closer schools like Grand Gorge, but games with more distant teams were usually held in a field part way between the two communities to save on gas.

My debut as a player was at second base in 1944, and I also was a pitcher and a catcher for the three years until I graduated in 1947 at the age of 17. At that time, you could elect to take a fifth year of school, and I wanted to do this. However, Schoharie County would not let you play ball in that year, but you could in Delaware County. I therefore moved to Stamford, lived with my brother Clayton, enrolled at Stamford Academy, and played both baseball and basketball in 1947–48.

The Gilboa-Conesville baseball team of 1944. Front row from left: Raymond Gregory, Donald Dunham, Eddie Gray, Franklin Clapper, Edsel Deyo, Francis Peck, Tom O’Hara, Mr. Rotenburg. Rear row from left: Robert Brownell, Donald Lewis, Arthur Disbrow, Ron Lath, Harry VanWormer, George Haverly, Jerry Buckley, Lincoln Faulkner.

At that time, Sam Tompkins was a pitcher for Stamford with a blazing fastball. It was so fast that no one else wanted to catch for him, and so I spent the time kneeling behind the plate and not having to chase ground balls. Luckily for me, Sam had wonderful control of his pitches, so I could hold the mitt up and he would hit it every time. Sam eventually ended up in AAA ball.

As for me, I played briefly with the Homer Braves (Homer, New York’s minor league team belonging to the Boston Braves) that summer. I joined the army and played Army baseball with Harvey Haddix and several pitchers from the Brooklyn Dodgers, and later moved with my family to Ottawa, Canada and continued to coach baseball. My Big Leagues Division team of Little League (16–18 year olds) won three national championships (1978, 1986, 1990), and I’m proud to say that there is now a ballpark named Carl Faulkner Field.

As is apparent from the article, [Carl] Linc Faulkner has been passionate about youth baseball from his school years in Gilboa through his successful coaching of Little League in Canada.

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