PHILIPSBURG —William ‘Keno’ Beezer will be the featured speaker at the annual dinner of the Philipsburg Historical Foundation, scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 9, at the Parish Hall of Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Philipsburg.
Beezer will discuss Philipsburg area baseball over the years.
‘Philipsburg has a great baseball history,’ said Beezer. ‘Stretching from Scott Field in Hudson to the Power House is Slabtown, we’re going to cover as much of it as we can, from A to Z.’
‘That would be from Adams to Zelenky, with numerous great players in between,’ said Laura Scott Bordas, granddaughter of baseball aficionado Harry B. Scott, who developed and promoted Scott Field, situated along state Route 53 where the Assembly of God Church is now located. The legendary diamond played host to Philipsburg’s dreams of glory from its opening in 1921 to the time of World War II. Bordas is working with Beezer on a book about area baseball.
Beezer, the beloved former director of the Moshannon Valley YMCA, said he grew up at the corner of Eighth and Spruce streets, only one block from the official boundary of Slabtown, at Ninth Street. Whenever there was a pickup game at the Power House Field, and that was often, he always played ball with the Slabtown boys.
‘Of course, we had competition from places like Gearhartville and South Philipsburg,’ Beezer said. ‘Such as that Woods clan in Southie, who had enough boys in their extended family to fill all nine spots on a team.’
Is it just an accident that the Moshannon Valley YMCA, when it was relocated from downtown Philipsburg in 1990, turned up in Slabtown?
‘Well, I wouldn’t want to comment on that,’ he said with a smile. ‘But there might have been some connection. Proximity to the American Legion football field might have had something to do with it, too.’
Beezer became a major league scout early in his career, and for years, helped arrange exhibition games and clinics for local players, in addition to running major league tryouts at the high school baseball field. These were by invitation only, and for years, were kept under wraps so that major league scouts could make quick trips to Philipsburg to observe the best players from around the Mid-Atlantic region, then sign them up if they liked what they saw. A number of area players went to the majors by this route.
Beezer said he is now ready to tell some of the best stories associated with the major league tryouts, and in fact will probably be telling them at the dinner. Tickets for the event include a buffet dinner catered by baseball fan Butch Molesky, of Mountaintop Catering.
For tickets, call (814) 342-2480, (814) 762-2041 or (814) 342-4842.
