Four area baseball players and contributors will be inducted into the Salem-Roanoke Baseball Hall of Fame at the 29th annual hot stove banquet this week. The dinner and ceremony is scheduled for Thursday, January 30, at the Salem Civic Center.
Salem native Murray Cook, a world-renown expert on building and maintaining baseball fields, will be the keynote speaker at the banquet. Murray is Division President of Brightview Sportsturf. With over 40 years of experience in venue design and management services in over 60 different countries Cook is recognized as the top consultant in his field. He has received numerous awards, including Sportsturf Man of the Year, Sportsturf Professional Field of the Year for his work in West Palm Beach in 1993 and in 2016 his field at Fort Bragg was deemed “Ballpark of the Year” by USA TODAY.
The Hall of Fame “Class of ’20” includes Pat Daly, David Groseclose, Matt McGuire and Roger White. In addition, Bill Rutledge has been selected to receive the Wayne LaPierre, Sr. award for contributions to the game.
White, a Botetourt County resident, has been coaching or scouting baseball in the area for 36 years. He’s been a major league scout for several teams and is currently a scout for the San Diego Padres. He played for Lynchburg College on a nationally ranked team before a long coaching career that included stints at Cave Spring, James River and Roanoke College, where he was the pitching coach on the 2003 team that brought baseball back to RC for the first time in over 60 years. Presently he’s the founder and owner of the business “Ultimate Baseball Clinics & Training Camp” along with running a summer camp.
Daly is one of the best players ever to play at Ferrum College. In 1998 he led all NCAA Division III teams in the nation in home runs, runs batted in, runs scored and slugging percentage and was second overall in batting average while only striking out 10 times all season. That year he was named first team All-American and Virginia Small College Player of the Year. He’s a member of the USA South Conference Hall of Fame and the Ferrum College Hall of Fame and one of only five Ferrum players to have his number retired. He played one year of professional baseball with the Chillicothe Points in the Frontier League.
Groseclose is a 1991 graduate of Alleghany High and the only Mountaineer ever to record 100 career hits. He went on to play four years at VMI and was first team All-Southern Conference at shortstop his senior year. He was drafted by the Colorado Rockies and played two years of minor league ball in their system.
McGuire is a William Byrd High and William & Mary graduate who is the current coach of the Roanoke College baseball team. Matt still holds several records for the storied baseball program at Byrd, including most hits in a career, and played on the 1997 state championship team. At William & Mary Matt was the captain of the team that won the program’s first CAA championship and advanced to NCAA regional play. He coached at Byrd after graduation then was an assistant at VMI, Tennessee Wesleyan, Ferrum and Randolph-Macon. McGuire has coached at Roanoke College for the past seven years, including a trip to the NCAA Division III Final Four in 2017 after winning the ODAC and South Region championships.
Rutledge is a big supporter of baseball in the area, having played for Andrew Lewis High School and on the Post 202 American Legion team. His family business, Rutledge Paint and Body Service, is celebrating its 70th year in business. He’s attended every one of the past 28 Hall of Fame banquets.
Tickets for the banquet will be available at the Salem Civic Center box office.
