History of the Garfield Heights Baseball League
During the winter of 1951, a group of fathers and local businessmen met for the first time in the basement of Garfield Heights Recreation Director Dan Kostel's sporting goods store on Turney Road. From these meetings, the Garfield Heights Little Boys Baseball League (now Garfield Heights Baseball League) was founded. It was during these meetings that John Rawlins was named the first league commissioner and along with Kostel and Arthur Grugle, traveled to Columbus to charter the league.
The GHBL is one of the oldest self-supporting leagues in the entire country. For nearly sixty years, the league has survived because of a legion of volunteers who not only coach but also fundraise and work on the fields. No matter if times have been good or bad, the one thing that has always been a constant is the Garfield Heights Baseball League program.
As the years passed, the league continued to grow, from maybe eighty boys during the early years to nearly 1500 during the late 1960s and early 1970s. During those peak years, there were over 90 teams playing on nine fields, which by this time, had switched from Garfield Park to the fields of the Garfield Heights City School District.
The 1980s brought change, because of the advent of so many venues for our youth, such as basketball and hockey camps. The ranks began to dwindle slightly. In 1987, the league founded and inducted the first class into the GHBL Hall-of-Fame.
The 1990s also brought change, with the inception of the travel program into the league. The league also realigned the divisions of the in-house program to better accommodate the youth of the community.
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, the league passed a long outdated rule, allowing women to become league members and later to coach and become board members for the first time.
The 2000s have seen continuous change, as the change in the community has seen the ranks dwindle even further. The volunteer pool has also become more shallow during this time. Fields became more scarce with the construction of the new Garfield Heights High School.
Sixty years of self-sustenance is a long time. Much has changed, but one thing that remains are the values the volunteers of the GHBL try to instill upon the players every day. The values transcend those taught only for the sake of baseball. Discipline, teamwork, pride, sportsmanship and playing by the rules are just some of the things emphasized. Thousands upon thousands have come and gone and moved onto very successful adult lives.
The league is very proud of those who have gone on to college and have become doctors, lawyers, educators, politicians and athletes. They are proud of those who choose to become simple, everyday, hard-working Americans and those who have become homeowners that are raising their families and teaching the next generation the same values that baseball has taught for over one-hundred years.
Students and players may learn a lot of things in school, but it is the lessons they are taught on the fields and memories and friendships created that they will remember for the rest of their lives.