1979 East Gaston High School Baseball Team

Ball Park Figures.

The history-making season of East Gaston’s bat pack gang of ‘79.

It was 1979, a date lodged between “Saturday Night Fever” and the Reagan administration.

SONY invented the Walkman that year, McDonald’s introduced the Happy Meal, the 205th and final episode of “All in the Family” was broadcast on CBS, and in Cleveland, Bobby Bonds hit his 300th home run, making him the second player to have 300 homers and 300 stolen bases.

In Mount Holly, East Gaston High School’s baseball team, a family-like gang of teenagers, was making news headlines on its own field – a literal diamond in the very-rough remembered, kindly, as a natural habitat with tall grass, uneven terrain and maybe a water hazard or two.

“If you put a fence and two benches out in the middle of a pasture, that was our baseball field,” says outfielder Tracy Black. “We used to crack ourselves up because opposing teams would show up to play on our field and we would hear, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ We did have some home games in ’79 though.”

“Where the field sits now, home plate would have been way off in right field,” says pitcher Wayne Kinley. “It was a cow pasture.”

“Pasture might be too kind of a word for it,” says centerfielder Kevin Collier. “I mean, we had no outfield fence; somebody put up two poles and a fence for backstop and scraped off some grass to put bases down. We had some rubber for home plate, and we played baseball out there.”

East Gaston’s boys of spring also were the Warriors’ boys of fall, and winter.

“The core of that team did a lot of winning in all areas, baseball, basketball and football,” Kinley says. “Coach (Jerry) Adams was the duo coach.”

“The football coach was coaching the baseball team, so of course we went to the state championship,” says third baseman Shawn Devinney.

“We went because of a bad hop in the outfield,” Collier says. “We advanced to the playoffs because our field was so uneven, there was a bad hop and it let us clear the bases and win the game. The other team was furious.”

“It was good,” Kinley says, “but it was 100 years ago.” This year, the 1979 team joins the Mount Holly Sports Hall of Fame. Its success in advancing to the school’s only state championship season became an inspiration for the EG program.

In 1979, Darrell Van Dyke was a first-year teacher and assistant baseball coach. The school’s current baseball field is named for him.

East Gaston took an 18-5 record, one published story says, into the 1979 State Championship series after beating T.C. Roberson 7-3 in Fairview in the second round of the state 3A playoffs and defeating South Stokes 6-2 in Belmont to win the Northwest 3A Conference championship The team advanced to the North Carolina 3A State Finals to play the winner of the White Oak-South Johnston game. They played White Oak, of Jacksonville, at its field.

White Oak’s pitcher was Louie Meadows, who played at N.C. State and was a Houston Astros second-round pick. His high school record was 28-0. “We did not win,” Black says. But they put up a good fight.

“There was a skirmish. Call it that,” Collier says. “Shawn, our third baseman… the runner was coming back at him, and Shawn lowered his shoulder to keep from getting run over, and lifted the guy up and the benches came out and we had a little skirmish. Shawn lowered his shoulder like a football player, and most of us did play football together.”

“Of course,” Devinney says, “a couple of us got thrown out. I got wound up and got into it with another guy, and their coach came out, and when they started comin’, Coach Adams was like my daddy out there, telling about it. So we both finished the game outside the fence.” White Oak aside, the guys already were winners.

“The ’79 class was actually the same group of guys who won the county championship when we were in junior high at Mount Holly Middle,” Black says. “So we won that, then it took us three years to win another conference championship when we were seniors.”

The sophomore class, Class of’81, Collier says, already had won four state championships together at some level: “I heard Coach Adams joke one time to another coach, ‘I just roll the balls out there and make the line-up and get out of the way.’ That’s what made it fun. He let us enjoy the game and play.”

The gang played American Legion ball together in Belmont. Mick Mixon, whose first radio job was at WCHL in Belmont and who later became the Carolina Panthers play-by-play announcer, called the games.

“He was in high school over there in Belmont, and we thought he was a nerd and wouldn’t give him the time of day,” Collier says, jokingly. “And he traveled with us to our games. I remember when (teammate) Derek Spears was playing at Clemson, he gave him an interview. It’s funny – we played Legion with the Belmont guys, who were our rivalry, and (South Point High School coach) Phil Tate was our coach, and he started more of the East Gaston guys than his own guys, even after they won the state championship.”

“East Gaston was one of the best teams I’ve ever played on. There were a lot of incredible players on our team,” Kinley says. “We, as sophomores, were really fortunate to have those seniors. It meshed really well.”

A few after-graduation stories:

Tracy Black: Played Class A ball with the Twins organization in Visalia, California. “It was in the middle of the state, hot as heck, 40 miles from Bakersfield. We were nowhere near water. I worked hard to get out of there. Then, I played AA in Orlando. It was still the middle of the state, but it was better than the desert.” Black was switched from outfield to first base, where he had a career-ending injury. “I gave myself a five-year plan to make the majors, and I was going on three years at the time. I was married and had a son back here (N.C.), and I would have had to go down two levels and work my way back. As much as I loved it, I had a responsibility.”

Today, Black lives in Fletcher, near Asheville, and works for Wilsonart, a specialty shop for designer laminate counter tops. He and his wife, Jill, have a blended family with seven children.

On his induction to the Hall: “We were just a bunch of guys who grew up together and played baseball and loved it and had success at the end. Even though it wasn’t the exact success we went for, we still did pretty good.”

Wayne Kinley: Drafted out of high school in the 17th round by the Seattle Mariners in 1981. “I went to Bellingham, Washington, just outside of Seattle, at 18 years old with $20 in my pocket, on an airplane and I’d never flown before, and was 3,000 miles away from home. Then I went to AA, and it was called the Wausau Timbers (in Wisconsin), in the Midwest League. Our second-baseman was a guy named Harold Reynolds, who’s the broadcaster on ‘Baseball Tonight.’ I eventually was released because of shoulder issues, rotator cuff.” Kinley went to work in the soft drink business, traveled the country and now lives in Calabash with his wife of 37 years, Debbie, and their son, Austin.

Kevin Collier: Played for UNC-Charlotte. He took a job in sales for a glass company, was on the Gaston County Board of Education for 24 years and now is sole owner of Riverside Millwork in Charlotte, which specializes in hand-crafted doors and windows. He and his wife Mary have two daughters and a son.

Derek Spears: Shortstop, second base. Three-sport athlete: baseball, football, track. Played for Clemson. He was Class of 1981 at East Gaston and was quarterback for the football team when it won its first conference title.