Published: September 16, 2009 11:50 pm      

Mark Maynard: 'Birdseed' memories still sweet: 9/17/09

Like clockwork, the calls and e-mails about Armco Field come in every week.

It’s amazing how something that’s not even standing anymore still stirs such strong memories for residents and former residents.

An e-mail came from Bill “Birdseed” Prichard, who has enjoyed reading about the old field.

Like so many others, Birdseed remembered watching the Class D Mountain State League games at Armco Field. He says it was a professional league, not a semi-pro league, as was stated earlier.

Watching the Williamson Redbirds with Stan Musial and Del Rice made him a diehard St. Louis Cardinals fan, even though the Reds were always the team of choice around here.

Birdseed said when Bobby Crist signed with the Ashland Colonels it was a big deal here because Ashland had a local boy who made it to the pros. Each team in the Mountain State League had an affiliate in the major leagues, he said.

For spending money, Birdseed sold the Ashland Daily Independent on the streets every day. He would purchase five papers for 15 cents and sell them on the street for a nickel apiece, and make a dime a day.

On Sunday morning’s paper, he paid 35 cents for five and sold them for a dime apiece for a profit of 15 cents.

His routine when he went to a Colonels’ game was to walk to the newsstand where the Ashland Plaza Hotel now stands, buy a bag of hot roasted peanuts for a nickel, walk down to the bridge and then thumb to the ballpark. He’d pay a dime to sit in the bleachers along the first-base line.

After the game, he found the Quality Bakery truck in the parking lot and Tony Weinfurtner, whose parents owned the bakery, would give him a ride to town.

Birdseed’s day of baseball cost him about 15 cents, including the bag of peanuts.

Of course, Birdseed has one of the best nicknames around. Back in those days, practically everybody had a nickname but few followed these gentleman through life like Birdseed’s did.

His nickname was a hand-me-down. His older brother Carl was given the “Birdseed” name because of his size. When Carl left for the Navy in World War II, the name of “Little Birdseed” went down to Bill and it stuck, for a lifetime.

One phone call came from a woman in Westwood who didn’t want to have her named used in print no matter how hard I pushed.

What she remembered wasn’t the sporting events, but the Fourth of July fireworks shows that were put on each summer at Armco Field.

“We could see them all the way from Westwood,” she said.

She also remembered how they set up Quonset Huts on the old field in 1941 prior to the start of World War II. The all-purpose, lightweight building could be shipped anywhere and assembled without skilled labor. It was a sign of things to come.

It wasn’t long after that the field was out of commission but never out of mind.

Nearly 70 years later, it’s still very much alive in the memory banks of many who lived here way back when.

MARK MAYNARD can be reached at mmaynard@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2648.