COLUMN VIEW FROM THE GAME It’s All We Need To Know: Home Plate 17 Inches Wide Editor’s Note: Tim Mead, incoming Baseball Hall of Fame president, cited John Scolinos, baseball coach at his alma mater, Cal Poly Pomona, as a lifelong inspiration, particularly Scolinos’ famous speech “17 Inches.” Chris Sperry, who published sperrybaseballlife.com, heard Scolinos deliver a version in 1996 at the American Baseball Coaches Association in Nashville, and wrote this reminiscence in 1916 in his “Baseball Thoughts” column. By CHRIS SPERRY • from www.sperrybaseballlife.com In 1996, Coach Scolinos was 78 years old and five years retired from a college coaching…
Hello, I Just found your article about the Adam Helmer’s Run memorial. In about 1980 my aunt Avis Helmer told me this story about our family predecessor Adam Helmer. Aunt Avis, my father Charles, and their siblings Clyde, Jack, John, Maxine, and others were all born in Virginia Minnesota . As I recall their father, that being my paternal grandfather, was also named Clyde Helmer and he had passed the story of Adam’s run down to them. This seems to be quite coincidental, and I was wondering if you could or would pass along the above information to the Adam Helmer descendants that were there at the dedication of the marker in Richfield Springs. My father and his siblings are all deceased so I have no way to inquire of them.
My Dad, Raymond W. Passage, another descendant of Adam Helmer, was born in1907, Weedsport NY. I grew up often hearing the story of Helmer’s Run. I’m in possession of a powder horn that (I was told) belonged to Adam Helmer. Further, I was told Helmer was a cobbler by trade. Supposedly, my Uncle, Richard was in possession of Adam Helmer’s tools.