One of the five Staunton natives who went on to play Major League Baseball, after his days on the diamond were over, became a national figure in fighting for the rights of players in an upstart league.
Another one ended his Major League career as teammates with Willie Mays in 1973.
And a third was the Baltimore Orioles MVP one year even though two of his teammates in the regular lineup were later enshrined in Cooperstown.
Fun fact: of the five natives of the Queen City who made it to MLB, three were named Larry.
Here is a look at those that went from the ballfields of Augusta County to the highest level of the sport, in chronological order:
Dave Fultz (played from 1898 to 1905)
Fultz, a center fielder and second baseman, was born in Staunton on May 29, 1875.
“Dave’s father, Alexander Fultz, was a Confederate officer, a captain in a Staunton artillery unit, during the Civil War. He fought at the Battle of Chancellorsville. He practiced law in Staunton and was a multi-term mayor of the city during the 1880s and ’90s. His grandfather, John Davis, was a Pennsylvania captain during the Revolutionary War,” according to the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR).
Dave Fultz went to Staunton Military Academy and Brown University in Rhode Island, according to baseballreference.com. He broke into the majors in 1898 with Philadelphia of the National League and he later played with Baltimore in the National League before ending his career with the New York Highlanders from 1903-05.
None other than Grantland Rice, the esteemed sportswriter of his era, would eventually call Fultz one best athletes who played both baseball and football, mentioning him along with Christy Mathewson, Eddie Collins and Jim Thorpe, according to SABR. Fultz was a Walter Camp All-American in football at Brown.
And in baseball, Fultz was considered the best bunter in the game – and he led the American League in runs scored with 109 in 1902, the year before the first World Series, and in sacrifice hits with 35 while playing for Philadelphia.
After his playing career, he organized the Fraternity of Baseball Players in the Federal League. Fultz also ran unsuccessfully as a Republican in Brooklyn as a state assemblyman, according to SABR. He died in DeLand, Fla., in 1959 at the age of 84 and is buried there.
Larry Woodall (1920-29)
A catcher, Woodall spent his entire Major League career with the Detroit Tigers. In 548 career games, he hit .263 – with one homer. That homer came in 1923 in a win at Yankee Stadium in a game Babe Ruth went hitless while Detroit teammate Ty Cobb had three hits. Mostly a backup catcher, Woodall did play in a career-high 86 games in 1927 and made just one error.
Born in Staunton in 1895, Woodall attended Wake Forest and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“After his playing career ended, he was a San Francisco Seals coach in 1940-1941, then a Red Sox coach from 1942-48,” according to baseballreference.com. “Woodall scouted for the Red Sox from 1955 until his death in 1963.” The Red Sox in 1946 won the American League title but lost in seven games in the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals.
Woodall died on May 6, 1963, in Cambridge, Mass., and is buried at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Silver Spring, Md.
Larry Boerner (1932)
Boerner pitched in 21 games with five starts for the Boston Red Sox in 1932 – his only season in the majors. Boerner was 0-4 for a Red Sox team that lost 111 games.
In his first game for the Red Sox, he came out of the bullpen against the Yankees and allowed hits to the first two batters. The next inning, he faced Babe Ruth – who reached on an error. Boerner then gave up a walk to Lou Gehrig but got Ben Chapman to hit into a double play to end the inning.
In Boerner’s last game, on Sept. 24, 1932, he again faced the Yankees and retired Ruth to end a scoreless inning against the Bronx Bombers. That would be the last batter he faced in the Majors. He pitched for two games for Jersey City in the International League in 1933 to finish up; he also pitched in the minors for Norfolk and Richmond.
Boerner is one of several players from the Staunton-Harrisonburg corridor to pitch for the Red Sox. That list includes Harrisonburg natives Nelson Chittum (1959-60) and Spotswood High grad Daryl Irvine (1990-92). For good measure, Harrisonburg native Travis Harper was drafted by the Red Sox out of JMU in 1997 – but he spent all his time in The Show with Tampa Bay. The fourth Harrisonburg native to pitch in the majors is Brenan Hanifee, a Turner Ashby grad now with the Tigers.
“Of self-reported Scotch-German ancestry, Lawrence Hyer Boerner was born in Staunton on Jan. 21, 1905, to parents Benjamin Beny R. Boerner and Sallie Elgin Boerner. He had a younger sister, Evelyn. Benjamin Boerner was a merchant tailor, custom cutter per the 1910 United States census. Larry attended John Marshall elementary school in Norfolk, Virginia, and Central High School in Washington, D.C.,” according to SABR.
He lived in Arlington in his latter years but died in Staunton in 1969 at Western State Hospital. Boerner is buried in Petersville, in Frederick County, Md., at St. Mark Apostolic Church Cemetery, according to baseballreference.com.
Jerry May (1964-73)
May finished his Major League career with the New York Mets in 1973 – so did Willie Mays, for that matter, though the latter had 645 more homers than the North River High graduate: 660 compared to 15. Another catcher for the Mets in 1973 was Ron Hodges, a native of Rocky Mount who played for the Harrisonburg Turks in the Valley Baseball League while in college.
May was a star at old North River. “It was like you were playing against a pro,” said TA grad Ray Heatwole, who faced pitcher May in high school and later became the coach at Bridgewater College, TA and JMU.
May began his minor league career with Kingsport in Tennessee in 1961 and worked his way up the Pirates’ system, breaking in with Pittsburgh on Sept. 19, 1964. In his first at-bat, he popped out against the future Hall of Famer Juan Marichal of the San Francisco Giants.
The backstop was part of history in 1970 when May was the catcher as right-hander Dock Ellis of the Pirates fired a no-hitter against the San Diego Padres. Ellis later admitted he was high on LSD during the game.
May played for the Royals in 11 games in 1973 and ended his career in four games with the Mets in the middle of that season. “I knew it was over and time for a new career,” he told the Daily News-Record when he retired from baseball. While he was playing, he once made an appearance at Mount Clinton Elementary School in Rockingham County in the winter at a parent and students’ event. After his career, he was very involved in the community in addition to working as a farmer.
Tragically, May joined the list of former Major Leaguers who passed away in a farm accident – he died in Swoope in 1996. Mark “The Bird” Fidrych, who took the game by storm with the Tigers as a rookie pitcher in 1976, died on his farm in an accident in western Massachusetts in 2009.
May is buried at Union Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Augusta County, near his parents. “He was, and is, my idol,” his daughter, Brougan, wrote on social media in 2021.
Larry Sheets (1984-90, 1993)
His last game came with Seattle in 1993, so it has been 32 years since a native of Staunton has graced a diamond in The Show. A left-handed slugger, Sheet was born Dec. 6, 1959, and was a second-round pick out of the former Robert E. Lee High by the Orioles in 1978. Some guy named Cal Ripken Jr. – who went to high school in Maryland – also went in the second round that year to the Orioles, and the two have been friends ever since.
Sheets began his minor league career in Bluefield, W.Va., by hitting 11 homers in 67 games in 1978. But he became annoyed with the lifestyle of minor league ball and only played three games with Bluefield the next year and a total of 50 in 1980, split between Double-A Charlotte and rookie ball Bluefield.
In the winters while in the minors, he attended what is now EMU in Harrisonburg and was a basketball star for the Division III Royals. After sitting out the 1981 baseball season, Sheets had a solid year for Single-A Hagerstown in 1982 and the next year hit a combined 25 homers between Double-A Charlotte and Triple-A Rochester. Sheets hit 13 homers for Rochester in 1984 before he was called up to the Orioles – getting an infield single at old Yankee Stadium in his first MLB at-bat that September.
By 1987, Sheets was a terror to opposing pitchers. That year, with a dreadful Baltimore club, he smashed a career-high 31 homers and was the Orioles MVP on a team that included Ripken and Eddie Murray, another Hall of Famer.
Sheets’ last year with the Orioles was in 1989, and he played for the Tigers the next season. Sheets sat out the 1991 campaign, played in Japan the next year, then made it back to the majors for 11 games in 1993 with the Seattle Mariners.
Since his playing days, Sheets has been the baseball coach at The Gilman School in Baltimore. One of his former players is son Gavin Sheets, a Wake Forest product who made his MLB debut with the White Sox in 2021 and is now with the San Diego Padres. Larry Sheets hit 94 homers in the majors – his son had 59 going into the July 4 weekend.
A basketball star at former Lee High, the elder Sheets had memorable hoop battles with Harrisonburg High star and future Hall of Famer Ralph Sampson, the University of Virginia product.
“Looking back, that has to be the greatest sports moment as far as an impact on my life,” Sheets told ballnine.com in 2022. “Greater than anything that happened in the Major Leagues. You go out on the court to play against Sampson, and there’s (college coaches) Dean Smith, Larry Farmer, Terry Holland, and they’re all there to watch Ralph play. We beat him as many times as he beat us. It was a sellout every time we played him. As a young person, it made a huge impact on my life, and it was something I’ll never forget.”
Honorable Mention
- Let’s start with the Staunton Braves of the Valley Baseball League. In information supplied by Steve Cox, the long-time general manager of the club, 58 former Braves have made the majors as of early July. That list includes May. The only former Braves’ player to manage in the majors is Brian Snitker, now with the Atlanta Braves …
- There was almost a sixth Staunton product to make the majors, but he fell short on two counts. Tyler Zombro, even though he went to Staunton High and grew up in Augusta County, was born in Harrisonburg, according to his mother, Fonda, a two-sport athlete at Bridgewater College. Zombro pitched for the Staunton Braves while in college at George Mason in Fairfax. He reached the Triple-A level as a pitcher in the Tampa Bay system for the first time in 2021; the right-hander overcame being hit in the head with a line drive at Norfolk that year to pitch two games at Triple-A for Texas in 2022. He announced his retirement in 2024 …
- Sheets and May are both alums of the Rockingham County Baseball League (RCBL). Sheets played for Shenandoah while in college while May played for Towers …
- Former Lee High and JMU pitcher Derrick Cook, a Staunton native, reached the Double-A level with Texas from 1999-2001 …
- Donald Hawkins, drafted out of Buffalo Gap High by the Cincinnati Reds in 1973, played in the minors that year in the Gulf Coast League … Pitcher Bob Savage, born in New Hampshire in 1921, played for Philadelphia of the American League from 1942-49, but missed three years due to military service. He went to Staunton Military Academy, according to baseballreference.com and died in 2013 …
- Fort Defiance grad Dell Curry was drafted by the Orioles out of Virginia Tech – but had a stellar NBA career … Right-hander Chris Huffman, another Fort grad who starred at JMU, reached Triple-A in the San Diego system in 2017 …
- Besides May, another former Major Leaguer buried in Augusta County is Hank Hulvey, who pitched one game for Philadelphia of the American League in 1923 against the Yankees. He is buried at Lebanon Church Cemetery in his native Mount Sidney following his death in 1982. In his only game, he allowed the 230th of 714 homers hit by Hall of Famer Babe Ruth, according to baseballreference.com …
- Waynesboro High grad Reggie Harris pitched in the Majors from 1990-99 for Oakland, Boston, Philadelphia, Houston and Milwaukee …
- Riverheads High has not had any pro baseball players, per thebaseballcube.com, though grad Grant Painter played at JMU from 2022-24.
David Driver is a Harrisonburg native who played baseball at Turner Ashby, EMU and for Clover Hill in the RCBL. He is the co-author of “From Tidewater to the Shenandoah: Snapshots from Virginia’s Rich Baseball Legacy,” which is available on the websites of Amazon and Barnes and Noble and at daytondavid.com.
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