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★ Medal— —Continued From Page 1 ° the American Legion, got interested in his case and took it up with proper departments and authorities, but due to various circumstances and. the deaths of some people involved the Purple Heart was never received.“Pop” Hall, as he is known to many Pulaskians, was quite a baseball player before and after his service inFrance. 0“After I came back I played with General Chemical fora couple of years and then got a contract with Knoxville,Tenn., in the Appalachian League in 1921,” he recalled. Healso played for Virginia Maid and managed MontieelioClub.Showing good hitting, some speed and fielding, Hall a third baseman, was good enough to get a contract with the St. Louis Browns after a tryout in 1924.“We were on our way back to St. Louis from spring training when I broke my ankle in Mobile, Ala.,” Hall recalled, noting that this was end of his major league aspirations.Hall must have had a good chance with the big league team. He said in spring training there were at least five third basemen and out of 19 exhibition games, he played in16. . ul He said his hitting was one of the main factors in hiscontract with St. Louis which included a $500 bonus and$500 a month. “That was big money in those days,” herecalled.After the bad break (his ankle) Hall returned to the minor leagues where he played in Mississippi in the Cotton State League, the Appalachian League and against teams in the Carolina League.Two names in baseball which are known to many fans, Waite Hoyt, a pitcher, and Babe Ruth, are two known personally by the Pulaski man.“Babe Ruth I remember him better than any other... he was in his heyday... he was about 6-6 and 230 pounds and his hitting was unbelievable. I’ve seen him hit ’em plumb out of sight,” Hall said, using his hands to follow the flight of the ball out of the park. Lou Gehrig, Hall said, hit them on the line, but Ruth’s homeruns were way up in the air. “Ruth was a big joker, too,” Hall recalled and told ofone incident where the Babe was carrying a couple of rubber snakes in his back pocket. “He hit pne out of the park and there was a big Frenchman playing first base and as Ruth rounded first, they fell out of his pocket,” Hall said laughing. “The other players got to pointing and yelling and that Frenchman reached third base before Ruth.”Hall recounted different Pulaski teams, players and games. He mentioned the late Y.W. “Doc” Ayers who played with Washington and $as traded to Detroit after afight with the fabled Ty Cobb.He also told of what a good pitcher Ayers was and how they both played in some games in which Ayers bet players from the other team Hall would hit more home runs than their entire team. Laughing, Hall said, “He won. I hit three and their team hit one.” He also told of how much fun Ayers had pitching and how he would laugh when he struck a batter out, and told of a double header Ayers pitched and won.Sports, particularly baseball, have been a big part in Hall’s life, but so has cooking and managing eating establishments and law enforcement.For six years he was on the Town of Pulaski Police Department, under Chief Marvin Pearce. “We didn’t have cars, we had to walk and we walked our prisoners to jail,” he said, recounting those days from 1935 to 1941.He also worked at Radford arsenal as motorcycle patrolman and served as chief of police in Dublin one year, 1952-53, where he gave up law enforcement after one particular trying and involved case which was solved.He operated the Argonne, on East Main Street in Pulaski from 1948 to 1951, then went down the street where he remodeled the Main Street Dinner and operated it from 1950 to 1952. Stints at an Alexandria restaurant with a good friend, operating Big Walker Lookout restaurant and with Nehi have been part of the working world of “Pop” Hall, as well as a stint with The Southwest Times.Now he spends his days at home watching television or listening to the radio when he’s not reminiscing about the bygone days in Pulaski, on the diamond and in the eating places around the country.
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Other Publications Near ,
The Pulaski News
Pulaski Times Journal
Pulaski News Review
Pulaski Staunton News Leader
Pulaski Southwest Times
