Happy Anniversary Panorama

Panorama Magazine is celebrating its 40th Anniversary. As a community magazine, Panorama is the good news publication and sports have been an important part of its history. Its first cover, “Love Your Coach” featured local basketball coaches. Starting in 1984 and for the next 26 years, Ron Marchetti was sports editor for Panorama. Marchetti, who was inducted into the Luzerne County Sports Hall of Fame in 2015, is considered the Dean of Greater HazletonSports History. This column took over in 2010, and in 2011 Rev. Connell McHugh was added with his unique take on local and state sports history through his extensive card collection and collecting knowledge. In the past decade Hard Coal Baseball has visited the history of our area through the players, venues and culturally significant events surrounding the rich history of baseball in Northeast and Central Pennsylvania. It has taken to time honor the achievements of local players, grieve the loss of local icons, met local authors, had some fun with the Philly Phanatic and discussed the best ballpark eats up and down the eastern seaboard.

The very nature of a bi-monthly article leaves very limited time and space to cover all the possibilities about which to write. Over the past 12 years we have received various suggestions about topics and questions on where information can be found. Many of the most common suggestions have been covered in this column, magazine, or at length in other outlets. Here

the Hazleton area has produced to date. There have been many articles written about Norm over the years. His career has been well documented in this magazine and other area media outlets. Norm appeared at Cranberry Creek Ballpark, with the Brooklyn Dodgers farm team in 1949. He later appeared for the Dodgers and Houston Colt 45’s. In 1960 he was second in the NL in hitting and 15th in MVP voting. Norm passed away in 2007. If anyone has any pictures or stories about Norm that are not well known, we would welcomethe opportunity to find out more.

Fear Strikes Out- In the past 12 years our most popular columns have been tie-ins with movies. “Fear Strikes Out” spurred manycomments from our readers, who remember Jimmy Piersall playing at the old Scranton Ballpark as a member of the Boston Red Sox farm team in 1948. The movie was the story of his battle with bi-polar disorder. Piersall had battled throughout his career with his teammates including Billy Martin and Mickey Mantle, umpires, fans and management. Despite his problems, Piersall had some fine seasons, winning two gold gloves, two all star

appearances and a top ten vote MVP vote finish in 1953. Piersall married a woman who lived in Scranton and for years would return from time to time. The movie is 55 years old this year and we hope to include more information this year in conjunction with the Scranton Historical Society

Where the Information is Found

The information from the article is found in two ways. The old fashion way which involves trips to local historical societies, and interviews with family members and local historians, many who have been collecting data and publishing books for years. The modern way involves web sites and social networks.

Historic Societies - Northeast Pennsylvania is blessed to have so many people dedicated to preserving the past. Many if not all of the local gems have sections or rooms dedicated to local sports and baseball, and some have their own Hall of Fames. Many of these societies have people who have written books and collect photos of all kinds of historic events.

Web Sites - There are some incredible web sites that provide free information that can be sorted in all imaginable ways.

Baseballreference.com – This website is the greatest source of information available. The site contains information on over 22,000 players and box scores of over 100,000 games. Most importantly, from our perspective, it also includes minor league records of players and leagues dating back to the 1880’s. One of the great features of the website is that it provides similarity scores to compare players across the years. This is a must site for even the most casual fan.

Newpapers.com – This website is an unbelievable wealth of information for any research project. It is extremely valuable to find out more obscure facts about local players. In a recent conversation with a reader, Brad Kocher of White Haven was discussed. Kocher played three seasons in the majors for the Tigers and Giants

and 12 more in the minors. A quick search at newpapers. com brings the player to life. Information about how he got his break into professional ball, his marriage announcement in Bridgeport CT, and fines for a fight in Kansas City. Life after ball which included much acclaim about hunting and dog shows. Kocher was featured in this column in 2010 when much of this information wasn’t available, an update will be published later in 2022.

Thedeadballera.com – This website specializes in obituaries of MLB players. There are many categories listed on this site to find out where the ballplayers are taking their final swings.

Digitalballparks.com and ballparks.com – These two websites feature both minor league and major league ball parks, with a wealth of information on everything from construction to their eventual demise.

These are just some of resources available. The official websites for MLB, Minor League Baseball (MILB), the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and Independent League baseball are great sources for all things baseball.

Social Media - The Social Media Sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are loaded with baseball information, trivia, and unique takes

I hope this answers some of your questions and curiosities about the column. Keep the e-mails flowing to hardcoalbaseball@yahoo.com

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