Richmond Press, Inc.                          Richmond, VA                          1938

The Terrapin Hill Cats   

Terrapin Hill was that section of Manchester lying at the north end of Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Street.

The baseball field of these cats was near the end of Eleventh Street; and there was a great elm under which the boys would congregate, while waiting for the gang to assemble. It was called the Big Tree.    

They had a ball team called the Sandbriars (as has been noted). And some of us little roosters had a nine of our own which was named the Rough and Readies. Once upon a time the Sandbriars, indulgently and out of pure friendship and consideration, agreed to play us a match game. We only made one run, or tally, as we called it those days; Llewly Lewis - his proper Christian name was Llewellyn - his big brother, Ed, who was pitching square on the nose.  He drove it far, but a long one, and it landed away off beyond Semmes Street and kept a rolling, while Llewly went scooting around the bases for a home run. To say we shouted ourselves hoarse is putting it mildly. After that momentous event, we could appreciate Scott's lines:

O War, thou hast thy fierce delight,            
Thy gleams of joy intensely bright:            
Such gleams, as from thy polished shield,            

We crowed over the Sandbriars for a month (without regard for the long string of tallies they had piled up against us). But such is boy nature.   Some of the old boys were: Hebert and Ben Owen and their brother, Bob, Arthur and John Macrone, John and Tom Robinson - they afterward played with the Manchester Red Stockings. Tom was a very dear friend of the writer; he would sit under the Big Tree with me, just us two together, and talk with me, listening as gravely as if it were a young man of his own age, instead of a poor little hell-cat of a short pants kid. Then there were George Craig and Lee Rice, also a dear friend of the writer (poor little wretch!),  Jim Robinson (afterward Commissioner of the Revenue), Henry Irving Crow (we called him Hic, of course; he was a good swimmer and knew a great deal about horses), Albert Simmons (we called him Labby), Ed Lewis (who lived on Diamond Hill), Tom Calligan and his younger brother whom we insisted on calling Stump - he was a beautiful swimmer and taught the writer several necessary things about that delightful pastime; he was clever at everything he did and could turn handsprings and "somersets." And a great many others, for it was an important and formidable gang.    

There were we littler kids, of course, who were permitted to sit under the Big Tree, around the outer edge of the gang, and to stand on the sidelines when the game started. It was we who had the Rough and Ready ball club, above referred to. Jim Bradshaw (we called him Jim Botts), Llewly and Tom Lewis and their little brother, Jimmy, Lewis and Willie Kidd - Willie was our pitcher; Jim Botts was our catcher - Jeff Wallace, Willie Morrissette, Tom Owens, Ernest Bradshaw and others.