Meyers, Bob
| Bob Meyers – (2003) |
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Bob Meyers, associated with Lorain Catholic High School’s baseball program as either it’s head coach or assistant coach for the past 25 years, enjoyed a fine career as an athlete during his younger days.
Bob benefited from an early introduction to baseball and hockey from his father, Ken Meyers, a well-known area amateur baseball manager and major league scout as well as a top amateur hockey player and coach. Ken Meyers served as the city’s winter sports director for most of the 1940s and 1950s.
Bob first started popping up in newspaper articles while excelling as a student-athlete at Longfellow Junior High, where he participated in football, basketball and track. He continued his career in basketball and baseball at Lorain High School.
Hockey for Bob came on winter weekends whenever the weather permitted. His skating and sticking ability were so good that Bob was invited to workouts with the pro Cleveland Barons while he was still in high school. Lorain had four ice rinks to keep busy on in the 1940s — at Lakeview, Longfellow, Central and Oakwood Parks.
Bob and fellow student-athlete Bob Schmidt are credited with helping resurrect Lorain High baseball in 1945. The school had dropped the sport 15 years earlier, but the two athletes were persistent and persuaded athletic director George Daniel to field a team under coach Ed Cinniger, who had recently arrived at LHS following a coaching job at Lima Central.
The new prep diamond team was successful behind the strong play of Meyers, who during the summer between his junior and senior year at Lorain High, batted .362 playing regularly for the Moose Lodge nine in the tough Lorain City Class A League.
It was Meyers’ strong left-handed batting performance against older pitchers in the City ‘A’ league which prompted Chicago Cubs scouts to sign him to a minor league contract while Bob was still in high school. Bob reported to Statesville of the North Carolina State League following his LHS graduation.
All told from 1945-50, Meyers, a 6-0, 190-pound third baseman, played for Statesville, the U.S. Navy Treasure Island (Calif.) team, plus other minor league teams at Marion (O.), Radford (Va.) and Oak Ridge (Tenn.). Among his minor league teammates were future Minnesota pro football coach Bud Grant, future New York Yankee hurler Bob Porterfield and fellow Lorainites Ray Mize and Mike Brelich.
Bob returned to the Lorain Class A sandlots with the National Tube Company nine in 1951. He also played with the Tubers in 1952, 1953 and 1955. He joined Lorain Glass in 1954 when NTC temporarily disbanded its team. Meyers was named National Tube’s Most Valuable Player in 1953. Bob also played ‘A’ ball with Kirby Cleaners, Yale Clothes and with his father’s Lorain All-Stars.
Meyers, a defenseman who played amateur hockey well into his 40s, was associated with such championship clubs as the Lorain Strollers, Super’s Sohio, Amherst Merchants, Oberlin Muller Packaging, Thompson Products, Realtors Exchange and Town ‘N Country.
Meyers was an integral part of Town ‘N Country’s U.S.A.H.A. Regional crown at Erie, Pa. in 1966. Other Lorain starters on that team were Ron Kirkcaldy and Paul Tomasic.
Meyers, a graduate of John Carroll University, also found time to succeed his father as Lorain winter sports director for five years in the late 1950s. Although still active as a prep coach, Meyers is retired from a 25-year career as a parochial grade school teacher.
