Alma COMETS Baseball - Alma, Allegany County, NY

Startup of this subject was spurred by submission of the 3 photos below by Pam Vincent, daughter of Robert Dewey Pinney, subject of the photos. 2009

ALMA COMETS

As of this date (8/23/09) little is known of the Alma Comets Baseball Team by me. If you know of or were involved with the team please write and fill me in with whatever you can share.

Email: RON TAYLOR, Alma Town Historian
NOTE: The team is now identified.....see below picture.

Alma Comets (ca. 1950)

"I spoke to my father about the picture. My Dad is Robert Shields He stated the following. Front row left to right is Myself, Robert Shields, Bob Pinney, Norm Mesler, Jim Shields, and this one is in question but I'm pretty sure his name is Tom Freeman, Donald Pye; bent over is Dave Dickerson he was Batboy. Back row Roy Gorton, Dick Shields, Durwood Coates and Baine Shields. I'm guessing the picture is about 1952,that's a 1947 Plymouth in the back ground. The league we played in was called the Octagon league. 8 teams us and Scio were the only teams from NYS. Ulysses, Genesee, Coudersport, Austin, Roulette and Antrim, all from PA. We won the championship 8 yrs. in a row. This is pretty much the original team, then a lot of the players changed. and we joined the Buffalo Evening news league after that and we took first place there also and I can't remember the teams we played then but they were mostly from Nys/ I remember we had a contest to name the team and that is how we raised most of the money to buy our uniforms. Don Perrin won the contest and that was the beginning of the Alma Comets. He later started to play and he was a left handed pitcher. Robert Shields Jr."

"This picture of Robert Dewey Pinney (my father in Comets uniform) is dated 5/30/50 and is taken in front of Dewey Pinney's (his father) house on Pump Station Road."

"The picture of him by himself at bat is dated May 1949 and it looks like the side of my grandfather's house (Dewey Hobson Pinney and Pearl). This would be that large open field between the house where Gary Arnold lives now on the corner and my Grandfather's house. My family lived in this house for a number of years when I was very young (the house now owned by Gary Arnold)."