As part of our Trenton Baseball Revival project, we spoke with Jim Ramm, who has a lifelong relationship with baseball in Trenton. He played in the West End Little League in the 1960s, became the youngest manager in the league in 1966 and formed the District 12 Umpires Association. With all of this experience, we thought he would be a perfect person to talk to and gain some valuable insight about what it will take to improve baseball in the city.
(As told to Andy Edwards)
-I played in the West End Little League back in the 60s, and in 1966 I became the youngest manager in the league. I was a coach for 32 years, having won three titles as playoff champs as well. From there I went on to become involved in administration and formed the District 12 Umpires Association, and in that role I was in charge of all the umpires in all of the city leagues.
Baseball was very popular(a few decades ago). Besides having four leagues in the city of Trenton, there were also two Babe Ruth leagues. But even when I was umpiring, the city didn’t maintain the fields well, and it’s a shame to see all the numbers(of players) go down. Even when the numbers were going down years ago, they should have had one entire league for the city of Trenton instead of four leagues.
Baseball has declined in Trenton because you are not getting the kids that want to come out and play the game. There are kids that decide to move out of the city and into the townships, where feeder systems and little leagues take them up to the Babe Ruth leagues and then on to high school. At Trenton High, there is no feeder system. Now that the two teams (North Trenton and Chambersburg) are combined as one, I hope it does help, but we need a feeder system in the city. Over the course of the years, when the All Star breaks came, the kids decided they didn’t want to play ball anymore.
When I coached Little League, we had a 27-game regular season schedule. When the All Star breaks came in July, we didn’t stop. We continued out league right through August. That’s how strong of a schedule we had. In the 70s, I happened to have the honor of being the pitching coach on the 1976 All Star team. We had a girl named Kelly Williams who was the first girl to ever pitch in an All Star game in Little League baseball in Trenton. Before she came along, I was the only manager in the West End league to have a female shortstop on my team.
As an umpire, when Doug Palmer was coaching in the championship game, I called a balk on his pitcher that cost him the game. Doug to this day remembers that with me, and he still tells me I made a great call.
When I started the District 12 Umpires Association, I got a hold of some guys, told them I was starting an organization and asked if they would like to be a part of it. I contacted the individual leagues and asked if they were interested in our services. Back then, we only got $10 a game to umpire the bases or the plate. I had a whole group of people, and we did not only North Trenton but also West End, Chambersburg, South Trenton, Nottingham, and Lawrence. I was also the assigner of umpires. When somebody called and said they couldn’t make their game, who do you think had to fill in?
To bring baseball back in Trenton, I believe that all the leagues should get together and form a new league called Trenton Little League, especially with the way the economy is today and the numbers in all of Trenton’s leagues being as they are. This way they can use all the fields in the city and draw from all over instead of the league boundaries they currently have. We also need help from the city. They do not help out the leagues, especially with things like maintaining fields. In 1976, when I was involved with the bicentennial, we requested to put lights up at West End. We had to fight the city to get them. The city used to give all the leagues equipment, but we had to fight them to get lights up.
