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Larry is another of the great all-around athletes to come out of Beatrice. As an example, he challenged Gayle Sayer's long jump record with a leap of 22 feet, broke Bob Hohn's Beatrice HS rushing record, was the first team ALL-STATE halfback, and was a three year starter on the HS basketball team. But, baseball was his best sport. In Midget Legion baseball he was dominant one year going 15-0, fanning 153 batters in 96 innings; 1.63 per inning and had an ERA of 0.82 the decimal is in the right place. His team was 27-0 at the time. Following an equally dominant Legion career, he moved on to UNO playing for the legendary Virgil Yelkin, a starter in football, basketball, and baseball for the Huskers in the mid-1930's. They called Larry 'The Fireman,' and he was their number one reliever. Those were the days before radar guns but several people, ex-UNO players now in the Nebraska Baseball Hall of Fame, testified to his live arm and nasty breaking pitch. One of them was elegantly quoted as saying, 'He could just throw the s*** out of a great fastball.' In 1969, he had the lowest ERA in the Rocky Mountain League at 1.83. He played Semi-Pro ball for Filley in the State Tournaments held in Wilber and for Lexington in the NIL being flown to and fro, put up overnight in a hotel, and was paid $50 for a win and $25 for a loss. He got a lot of pictures of the US Grant. |
