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Thursday, May 4, 1995
HERALD SPORTS
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(ED. NOTE - The late James
"Red" Layton will be inducted
into the Kings Mountain Sports
Hall of Fame Tuesday night, May
16 at 7 p.m. at the Kings
Mountain Community Center
along with the late Bud
Bumgardner, Punch Parker and
the 1966 Teener League baseball
all-star team. ACC basketball
Coach of the Year Dave Odom of
Wake Forest University will be
the guest speaker. Tickets are $10
each and available at Carolina
State Bank, McGinnis
Department Store and the Kings
Mountain Herald).
When Kings Mountain sports
fans get together to talk about the
good old days and their all-time fa-
vorite players, the name of Red
Layton always comes up.
Layton was a three-sport star for
the Mountaineers in the early
1930's, and he played several years
of semi-professional and profes-
sional baseball.
Layton, also, was one of the
town's biggest supporters of youth
sports. The hundreds of youngsters
- and adults - who take advantage
of the facilities offered at Kings
Mountain Parks and Recreation
Department may not recognize
Layton's name but they have him
to thank for helping organize the
recreation program.
Layton was a city commissioner
in the early 1950s and was the
town's first Recreation Director. At
that time the recreation program
was held in the schools because the
town had no facilities other than
City Stadium which was used for
baseball and softball programs.
But Layton and fellow commis-
sioner Lloyd Davis pushed hard for
a recreation program and facilities,
and in 1953 Layton organized the
city's first Little League baseball
program. Shortly afterward work
began on a playing facility which
is now known as Jake Early Park
Community Center.
What was once a four-team
baseball league for players ages 8-
12 has now expanded to include T-
Ball, Dixie Youth Minor and Major
Leagues and Dixie Boys, girls soft-
ball and various other sports with
several hundred youngsters partici-
pating.
At the same time the little league
was forming, Layton and others or-
ganized a Pony League. Because it
was not affiliated with organized
leagues for several years, the first
place team would meet a team of
all-stars from the second, third and
fourth place teams at season's end.
The Little League, however, was
affiliated with Little League
Baseball and from the very start
placed an all-star team in district
competition. The first all-star team
in 1953 lost to a good Mt. Holly
team in the opening round of the
district playoffs.
If records of KMHS sports were
kept in the early 1930s, they have
long been destroyed, but many for-
and. is located adjacent to fhe
After his baseball career was over Red Layton served as a Kings
Mountain City Commissioner and the town's first Recreation Director.
He organized the first Little League and Pony League in Kings
Mountain. a
"Red Layton was
the best athlete
3 I've ever seen.”
_ -Toby Williams.
mer athletes and fans recall Red
Layton as one of the best all-
around athletes in KMHS history.
Toby Williams, who is a mem-
ber of the KM Hall of Fame and
was Layton's teammate at KMHS
and has seen most of the athletes
here since the late twenties, said in
a feature story in the Herald sever-
al years ago that Layton was "the
best athlete I've ever seen."
"He could do it all," said
Williams. "He was as fast as a
ghost. He could fly."
Layton was best known for his
baseball prowess, but Williams
said in this day of wide-open foot-
ball he would have been an excel-
lent pass receiver. "He could leap
and had excellent hands," he said.
Layton was a powerful left-hand
hitter, played in the outfield and
was an outstanding drag bunter and
base runner. "He could get to first
base quicker than anybody I've ev-
er seen,” Williams said. "He could
beat Mickey Mantle. If he hit the
ball to deep short it was a hit, and
he could steal bases."
Layton played some pro baseball
after graduating high school, and
the story through the years is that
he would have made the major
leagues if he hadn't seriously in-
jured his hip in an automobile acci-
dent. Layton's son, Dr. James
(Ronnie) Layton, a Mountaineer
football standout in the early
fifties, said that story is a bit mis-
leading. He said the biggest obsta-
cle in Layton's path to the big
leagues was that he was madly in
love with the woman who would
later become his wife, and spent
most of his time coming home to
Kings Mountain to see her. Dr.
Layton said the automobile acci-
dent occurred long after his father's
pro baseball career was over.
Layton helped organize, and was
a leading player, in some of the lo-
cal textile league teams in Kings
Mountain in the mid-thirties, and
he was also an outstanding softball
player. He is a member of the
Cramerton Softball Hall of Fame.
In a stretch from 1934-36
Layton was an outfielder on the
Neisler Mills semi-pro team which
was one of the most feared teams
in the American Textile League.
The team featured some of Kings
Mountain's best all-time baseball
players, including catcher Jake
Early, who went on to play 10
Baseball great, recreation advocate Red Layton
going into Kings Mountain Sports Hall of Fame
Red Layton was a left-hand hitting outfielder who had power to all fields and was an excellent base run: :
ner and defensive player. He played high school and Textile League baseball in Kings Mountain and also
played professional baseball in the Boston organization.
years in the major leagues, Coman
Falls, Red Ormand, Bill
Huffstetler, Robert Allen, Arthur
Hord, Clyde McSwain, W.J.
Fulkerson, Charlie Moss, Ralph
Mitcham, and others.
Layton hit .412 and clubbed five
home runs for Neisler in 1934, and
in 1936 he hit .400 and helped lead
the team to a 19-12 record and the
league championship.
The late Robert Allen, who
played shortstop on those teams,
recalled in a feature story in the
Herald several years ago that
Layton and Coman Falls were an
unbeatable combination in the out-
field.
"With Coman Falls in center and
Red Layton in right, we had the
best outfield of any team around
here," Allen recalled. "Layton was
the fastest thing to ever come out
of Kings Mountain. He and Coman
Falls were about as equal in talent
as any two players you'd ever
find."
Allen recalled that the Neisler
Mills teams played at a field locat-
ed at the present site of the Dilling
Street water plant. It later moved to
a field located where the America
Legion is now. )
"The old legion field was a huge
park," he noted. "There were never
but two balls hit over the right field
fence, which was well over 400
feet. Red Layton hit one out anda
boy from Lenoir named Lefty
Chestnut hit the other. I was fortu-
nate enough to see both of them."»
fei
Fas
| 1935 MARGRACE MILL TEAM - The 1935 Margrace Mill baseball team included many of the leg-
ends of Kings Mountain sports. The team competed in the highly competitive American Textile League.
! Front row, left to right, business manager C.C. "Shorty" Edens, pitcher Horace Styers, catcher Jake
A Early, shortstop Robert Allen, third baseman Bill Huffstetler, batboy C.C. Edens Jr., first baseman-ficld
; | manager Hugh "Red" Ormand and centerfielder Coman Falls. Back row, catcher-outfielder Carodine
ll Moss, pitcher Willie Grice, pitcher W.J. Fulkerson, pitcher Howard Pursley, second baseman Skinny
Jenkins, rightfielder Red Layton, catcher Ralph Mitchem, and scorekeeper Happy McDaniel. The man in
the background was one of the team's fans, Wash Layton.
Red Layton, far right, was a City Commissioner in 1953 when the new entrance to Mountain Rest
Cemetery was dedicated on East Gold Street. Pictured, left to right, are Commissioners BI. Wright Sr.
and L.E. Davis, Cemetery Supt. Sam Suber, Mayor Garland LE. Still, and Commissioners Olland Pearson
and Layton. Layton was instrumental in the organization of the Kings Mountain Recreation Department
and the building of Deal Street and Davidson Park sports complexes.