Granada little League Hall of Fame -
In 2014, Kathleen Minser asked if I could relate some stories about the early-on HOF inductees and some knowledge of the league's earlier years. I attempted to contact nineteen inductees dating from the initial class of 1994 through the 2001 class (I did not know Patty & Sylvan Gentile, class of 2000, so they are not included) with good success.
Unfortunately I discovered that seven are deceased (as of this submission date I have six of their histo- ry's with the league as related by the surviving family) and one person, Rick Burruss cannot be located. Jerry Sveen, a retired Lt. Commander in the Navy and engineer at the Livermore Laboratory, died recently and his children have not been located.
You will read of financial problems and facility conditions that could not and would not be acceptable today. You will read of two deaths on our fields but just one of them baseball related. You will shudder
at early field playing conditions with just a few volunteers to help. You will want to thank Craig Craw- ford
for years of taking down and putting up fences. There are unsung teenage heroes like Brian Geiger, Kenny LaRay and David Johnson who spent as many weekend hours getting the fields playable as did their fathers. You might notice that names from LARPD such as Steve Goodman and Jerry lngledue are missing but the facility would not be there today with their assistance and support. Even Ben Green (PE teacher at Mendenhall) helped work through school district concerns for us.
There are still many untold stories of those first years i.e. Eagle Scout badges earned and a wedding;
MLB Cy Young award winners Mark Davis attending Granada High School but playing for LNLL and Randy Johnson attending Livermore High School and playing one year at GLL. I will continue to search for Livermore people who can add their knowledge to this initial publication. Hopefully there will be a volume II?
The sponsors of GLL's first year of play in 1967 were identified by The Independent Newspaper's sum- mary of games in May & June, 1967. Sponsors were: Hacienda Hospital,Team Shop,Pyburns, Diamond National, Tarin Brothers, Jerry's 76, Montgomery Ward, Patterson Glass, Holiday Shopper, Control Data, Sandia Juniors, Daily Chevrolet, Mason Associates, W Root Beer, Guarantee Savings and Firestone Savings Center.
Craig Johnson, HOF Class 1994