As the description says, “Many Southern West Virginia coal camps had baseball teams in the 1930s. This is the story of coalfield baseball’s golden era.”

The Sunday games after church were a “raucous displays of coalfield culture,” said the late Stuart McGehee of the Eastern Regional Coal Archives in the doc. “Every little coal company town, and there were maybe 500 of them in Southern West Virginia, had a baseball park. Everyone’s game was baseball…Quality of ball in the coalfields was as good or better at any level of semi-pro or amateur ball in America.”

The players interviewed were John, Willard and Gene McGraw (the “best brothers groups to play in the coalfields”), Harry Perkowski, Willard Artist McGraw, Angus Evans Jr., Charlie Kowaleski, Charlie Karbonit, Okey Mills, John Kerzic, Jimmy Harper, Tom “Lefty” Tudor, and Idie Scott.

County League system peaked right before WWII and disbanded in mid-1950s.