Liberty’s Lee Guetterman is one of 23 former Waynesboro Generals to make the Majors

Lee Guetterman was born in Tennessee and went to high school in California, where his father was a Navy chaplain. But he did not have far to go when he joined the Waynesboro Generals in the Valley Baseball League in the summer of 1979.

A lefty pitcher, Guetterman played for what is now Liberty University in Lynchburg earlier that year under Al Worthington, a former Major League pitcher. Guetterman ended up playing for the Generals again in 1980 for late coach Larry Dofflemyer, then was drafted out of Liberty the following year in the fourth round by the Seattle Mariners. Dofflemyer went into the VBL Hall of Fame in 2019 and passed about two years later.

“Larry was a coach who knew one way, his way or the highway,” Guetterman, 66, texted to the AFP from his home in east Tennessee. “The first summer, we did okay. The second summer I tried to go to a team in the same league … he found out I was moving to another team and nixed that right off. That summer I went 3-5 on a team that went 10-30” while also seeing some action at first base.

Guetterman pitched in the majors from 1984-96 for the Mariners, New York Yankees, New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals, compiling a record of 38-36 with an ERA of 4.33 in 425 games with 23 starts and 25 saves.

“One of the more consistent relievers of his day, Guetterman started the 1989 season for the Yankees with a run of 30 2/3 innings without giving up a run – the highest total in 41 years. This streak was the longest ever by a reliever to start the season,” according to baseballreference.com.

Guetterman was a two-way star for Liberty. “He was a great teammate and destined for an MLB career,” wrote Flames’ teammate David Schauer, a pitcher at Liberty. “He pitched and hit with the best of them. He was the ace of our rotation. His hitting was on par with Sid (Bream of Liberty), Franklin (Stubbs of Virginia Tech) and Lorenzo (Bundy of JMU)” – three lefty college sluggers in the early 1980s.

Guetterman is one of 23 former Generals to make the Majors prior to this season, according to information provided by long-time Staunton Braves general manager Steve Cox.

Among those that were still active at some point this season include Graham Ashcraft, a pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds; Connor Norby, who broke in with the Baltimore Orioles in 2024 and is now with the Miami Marlins; Mike Brosseau, who made his debut with Tampa Bay and has played this season at Triple-A El Paso with the San Diego Padres; Eric Stout, who has played this year in China after breaking in with the Chicago Cubs; and Tommy Manzella, who has played this year in Mexico and with Gastonia (N.C.) in the independent Atlantic League.

After pitching at Mississippi State, Ashcraft played for the Generals in the summer of 2018 before transferring to the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Those moves paid off as Ashcraft was drafted in the sixth round by the Reds in 2019 after he was selected in the 12th round by the Los Angeles Dodgers out of his Alabama high school three years earlier. The right-hander broke into the Majors with the Reds in 2022, and that season he struck out 10 batters in a game against the Los Angeles Angels, including Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani in the bottom of the fifth inning.

“Those guys are just such great hitters,” Ashcraft told reporters after the game. “The only thing you can do is just go out and just try to attack them.”  Ashcraft, who had pitched in 37 games through July 23 out of the bullpen, including July 21 at Nationals Park, has been teammates with the Reds with Halifax County and UVA Baseball product Andrew Abbott, a 2025 All-Star.

Guetterman is not the only former Generals’ star who had ties to Virginia before heading to Waynesboro. Here are some others:

*Catcher Erik Kratz played for Waynesboro while starring at D3 EMU in Harrisonburg. He was drafted out of college by Toronto in 2002, eventually made the Majors in 2010 with the Pittsburgh Pirates and played at least one MLB game every season through 2020 before he retired.

Kratz hit .259 in the minors but .209 in the Majors. “I never worried about calling pitches. For me, the challenge was hitting them,” said Kratz, with a laugh, during an interview five years ago. He also played for Harrisonburg in the VBL.

Since playing for the Yankees in 2020, Kratz has done some color commentary for Philadelphia Phillies broadcasts; teamed up with best-selling author Tim Brown for a book on backup catchers; coaches the baseball team at his high school alma mater (now named Dock Academy); and co-hosts a baseball podcast, “Foul Territory,” that has included former Covington VBL player and MLB infielder Jason Kipnis and other ex-big leaguers.

What are his memories?

“There are so many. Seeing all the premium D1 schools names and being a D3 player was daunting but once I go to play with them it made me feel like I could hang with them,” Kratz wrote to AFP on July 24. “I was told by my coach at Waynesboro one time that D3 players have no place on the field with D1 players. I worked at Spotswood Country Club in Harrisonburg and commuted to Waynesboro the first summer I played there, and then the second summer I worked as field maintenance for Waynesboro. I was actually traded with five games left in the season the second year I played in the Valley to the Turks, which is crazy to think that they traded players.”

*The list includes two retired stars who went into the VBL Hall of Fame in 2023: long-time Waynesboro resident Denny Walling and Mike Lowell, the MVP of the World Series in 2007. Walling was a teammate in Houston with Steve Finley, who played for Harrisonburg in the VBL, and with Alan Knicley, the first Turner Ashby grad to make The Show.

After his playing career, Walling was an MLB hitting coach and worked in the Orioles’ farm system and was the hitting coach for the Norfolk Tides in 2013. “It may be the hardest place to be a head coach slash manager in sports,” Orioles manager Buck Showalter told this reporter that season about the Triple-A level.

*Other former Generals to play in The Show include the late Johnny Oates, the Virginia Tech product who played and managed with the Baltimore Orioles (and Texas) and is also in the VBL Hall of Fame, and a pair of Lynchburg natives: Brandon Inge (VCU) and Greg Booker. Oates was born in North Carolina, grew up in Prince George and passed in Richmond in 2004. Booker grew up in North Carolina, went to Elon and passed in 2019 at the age of 58 due to melanoma, per baseballreference.com.

*Another Virginia native who played for Waynesboro and made the Majors is former infielder Scott Sizemore, a product of Virginia Beach and VCU who was in the big leagues from 2010-14 with the Mets, Detroit Tigers, Oakland A’s and Yankees.

Several former Generals played in The Show with the Yankees, including Andy Cannizaro, Guetterman, Kratz, Lowell, Sizemore and Oates. Oakland was another popular destination for former Generals as Emil Brown, Inge, Walling and Sizemore all played for the West Coast club.

The Generals have had good fortune with catchers – Inge, Kratz, Kirt Manwaring, Oates and Bruce Benedict all were backstops to some degree in the big leagues. Other ex-Waynesboro players to make the big leagues include Chris Carter, Steve Fireovid, Adam Liberatore, Patrick Mazeika, Dave Tobik and Bill Paschall. Manwaring was signed by former Giants scout Mike Toomey, who won a World Series ring as an assistant to former Kansas City Royals general manager Dayton Moore, who played at George Mason and is also in the VBL Hall of Fame.

Notes

• Guetterman faced two Virginia natives in his first game in the Majors, for Seattle against Texas: Curtis Wilkerson of Petersburg and Billy Sample of Salem and JMU. Tobik was teammates with the Tigers with all-star second baseman Lou Whitaker of Martinsville and played on the same Texas teams with Wilkerson and Sample, as well as the late Jim Bibby, a long-time resident of Lynchburg. Tobik, a pitcher, ended his career with Seattle in 1985. Other pitchers on that team were Hampton native Jim Beattie and Brian Snyder, who went to Chantilly High.
• Waynesboro High grad Carl Carson (WVU Tech) pitched three innings on July 21 in his first outing of the summer for the Generals. Noah Murray, an infielder from Crozet and Duke, hit .350 in his first 60 at-bats with the Generals. Former Generals head coach Lawrence Nesselrodt holds the same post at WVU Tech.
• Guetterman went into the Oceanside High Hall of Fame in California in 2022. He and his wife, Drew, founded the Crossroads Christian Academy in Lenoir City, Tenn., in 2021, and he has been involved in youth coaching there.
• Dofflemyer coached at the high school level in several state counties, including Albemarle.

David Driver is a Harrisonburg native who played baseball at Turner Ashby, Harrisonburg Legion Post 27, EMU (one light-hitting season) 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.