SALISBURY, Pa. — The late Stanley Bowman Thomas, longtime baseball coach at Salisbury High School known simply as “Chief,” will be honored posthumously by the Salisbury-Elk Lick school district this evening when the Salisbury High Elks take on Shade High School at 7:30.
Thomas served as the Salisbury baseball coach from 1961 until 2004, and early in his career there, he changed the nickname of the team from the Elks to the Orioles, after his favorite major-league team. Thus, during Thomas’ successful tenure, Salisbury competed as the Orioles. The nickname, however, was changed back to the Elks when Thomas stepped down from coaching. He passed away on June 9, 2006 at the age of 74.
At 7:15 tonight prior to the Salisbury-Shade game, the district will honor Thomas and his contributions to the school and community. In honor of Thomas, the Salisbury team will wear the old Orioles uniforms, and a plaque will be presented to the Thomas family.
“Our community has a genuine love of the game of baseball and it is in large part due to the efforts of Mr. Thomas and the commitment of local volunteers and organizations that love the game of baseball,” said Joseph Renzi, acting school district superintendent and elementary principal. “We are one of the few high school teams that play baseball games under the lights. In a very small community, we have two Little League teams, a Minor League team, and a Hot Stove team. Also, in the summer our local Lions organization runs an annual and very successful Little League tournament.”
Thomas graduated from Salisbury Elk-Lick High School in 1949 and earned a bachelor of arts degree from Penn State University in 1953. He also graduated from Echols-Temple School of Mortuary Science in Philadelphia, and later earned a masters degree in education from Frostburg State University, doing post-graduate work at West Virginia University.
For 37 years, Thomas taught mathematics and science at Salisbury, serving as high school principal and coaching the Orioles baseball team. He coached several generations of local youth in Little League, the Bi-State Pony League, and the Hot Stove League. Along with coaching and managing he made the Salisbury baseball field one of the premier fields in the area, and helped to start the annual Salisbury Little League Tournament.
The Somerset County Old-Timers’ Baseball Association honored Thomas as a charter inductee to its Hall of Fame and appointed him to serve on the board.
Contact Mike Burke at mburke@times-news.com.
Mike Burke - Sports
Related Photos
Salisbury to hail ‘Chief’ tonight, wear O’s uniform
- Mike Burke - Sports
-
-
Happy birthday, Brooks
Today is Brooks Robinson’s birthday. That’s right, good ol’ No. 5 is 75 years young, a term the great Chuck Thompson used all of the time, and a term that, even as a child, drove me up the wall when Chuck would use it to send birthday greetings to somebody who had just turned 100.
-
How to e-mail (or phone) us your games
It will remain one of the great mysteries of my life (until I hit the lottery, that is) that seemingly grown men and women who have the mental capacity to sit at a computer, compose an e-mail and send it, cannot look at the little league/softball game reports that appear daily in the Times-News and duplicate the format we require for publication.
-
The DH, the rook, ‘old school’ and the Codes
Baseball, to say the least, is presently buzzing in the Baltimore-Washington corridor, as the Orioles streaked to baseball’s best record through the first 29 games, while the Nationals seem to be every bit the contender they were said to have been, sitting atop the National League East as of yesterday.
-
Take me out to the coin collector’s?
You know, you try to do the right things, but sometimes it just doesn't pay off in the end. And that's fine.
-
We’d have taken Hines back, too
The Mega Millions madness is over for now, and that’s a good thing, because, frankly, I’m a little bit ashamed of all of you. Really. If you could have just seen yourselves and the way you’ve been acting these past 10 days, with nothing but greed soaring from your eyes, you’d be embarrassed, too. It’s as the great Charles E. Lattimer used to say (to me quite a bit, actually), “(Jiminy Crickets), look at yourself, son.”
-
With no rule, there is no spirit to break
Three days after paying a king’s ransom for the No. 2 pick in the NFL draft and the right to select Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III (or, if Jim goes completely Irsay on us, Stanford quarterback Oliver Luck), the Washington Redskins were informed by Commissioner Vernon Wormer that they had violated double-secret probation, bringing to mind a piece of Redskins history that would produce one of the great lines in sports.
-
No need to wonder what ACIT means to Karcher
This weekend’s 52nd Alhambra Catholic Invitational Tournament will mean a great many things to a great many people, from the players who will be competing, to their coaches, schools, family and friends, and to the fans who come to see some of the best high school basketball in the country.
-
Shot clock should help loaded ACIT to light it up
The idea had been floating in Joe Carter’s thoughts since last year’s ACIT final between DeMatha and Benedictine, when DeMatha head coach Mike Jones, to help alleviate his team’s injury and foul issues, slowed the pace of the game in the first half of the title game his Stags would win, 53-43.
-
Senior Day honor is the least Mosley deserves
COLLEGE PARK — Sean Mosley will be honored at Comcast Center today on Senior Day prior to Maryland’s game against Virginia, and it’s difficult to believe it’s been four years since we got our first glimpse of the 6-foot-4 guard out of Baltimore’s St. Frances Academy when he was the Most Outstanding Player in the 2008 Alhambra Catholic Invitational Tournament field.
-
Somewhere over the rainbow starts here
During a break in the program Sunday night, former Pittsburgh Pirates slugger Bob Robertson sat at a table backstage sharing some stories from the day when he played some of the finest defensive first base and hit some of the longest home runs in the major leagues in helping the Bucs to the 1971 world championship.
- More Mike Burke - Sports Headlines
-
