The Backpage: The boys of summer, 1970 edition

Goodlettsville’s Little Leaguers qualified for the World Series this year, the first time in 42 years that a team from Nashville made it to the big game in Williamsport, Pa. That 1970 team, the Nashville Optimist Little League All-Stars, was made up of a group of mostly South Nashville kids who played near Shelby Park. One of them, Keith Haynie, was kind enough to provide us with this photo of the squad. He told The Backpage that a few things were different back then. Bats were wooden, and the team had an extra tournament to play in, traveling to Louisiana and Florida before heading to Pennsylvania. Oh, and it was single-elimination in those days, too, so they had quite an undefeated streak to make the World Series.

“I always pull out my album this time of year because I get nostalgic. Looking through there, we had a lot of extra-inning games,” Haynie said. When the team returned, Haynie and some of the players who attended Wright Junior High were treated like heroes. “It was kind of neat,” he said. “They made an announcement over the intercom.” Where are they now? Haynie works in the printing business and stayed close to a few of the guys, playing high school baseball at Glencliff with five of them.

“We’ve talked with Coach Moffett and tried to get a reunion, but can’t find them. They’re not on Facebook, either!” he said. If you happen to know where any of the squad below are, let us know by email here at editor@nashvillecitypaper.com [1]. We’ll pass the information along.