Prospects Look Bright for the

Spring Baseball Season

The Mechanicsburg High School Baseball Team will officially open its season on Tuesday, April 20th. The prospects are excellent this year for an unusually fine baseball season. There are ten letter men back from last year's team and every position will be tried for by a letter man. However, there is some splendid material among the newcomers who should give the veterans fight for their positions. No one person is sure of his position on the team. Under the tutelage of Mr. Fortney, the team should have no trouble in winning the majority of its games and finishing near the top of the West Shore loop.

The lettermen who return are: Welker, Rupp: p; Hall: c; Stoner: 1b; Kline: ss; Tom Trimble: 3b; Hubbert, Gensler, and Murlatt: of

(March 24, 1937 Torch)

Whether many people realize it, or not, M. H. S. is the only school within this area that has two excellent sophomore pitchers for its baseball team. Not withstanding their pitching ability, these fellows are also "crack" batters. The queer part about John and "Huck" is that they both live outside of town. "Huck" Welker lives in Shiremanstown and John Rupp lives in the vicinity of Silver Springs.

(5/26/37 Torch "Sports Lights")

Season record: 5 - 6 - 1

In 1937 several significant sports related events also occurred.

The legendary John Frederick was hired as the varsity football coach for the fall of 1937. Coach Frederick replaced George Vorbach who had died suddenly in the spring of 1937 at the age of 33 from pneumonia. The April 23 Torch reported that, "Coach Frederick was acquainted with Coach Vorbach while attending Illinois. In addition to receiving his master’s degree in physical education from Columbia University by summer work, Frederick spent one summer at Penn State, and during the past three summers attended the following coaching schools: Colgate, 1936; Toledo, 1935; and Northwestern, 1934."

M.H.S. was forced to forfeit four basketball games because of an ineligible player. The Feb. 5 Local Daily News reported, "We want it distinctly understood that we do not believe Merrill deliberately misstated his age," said Superintendent Van Scoten. "We believe he was sincere in giving his birth year as 1917 when he first registered in Mechanicsburg schools back in the sixth grade."

Supt. Van Scoten said that three years ago a check was made on birth certificates of all the school athletes. At that time Vital Statistics Bureau officials were unable to locate a certificate for Westhafer. Merrill had told school authorities he was born in Marysville and the Perry County records showed no such birth.

School officials knew he would not be eligible after next football season because they figured his 20th birthday would fall last next year. Recently they asked the Vital Statistics Bureau official to check again on the birth certificate because they wanted to be certain as to when he would become ineligible for football.

This week the birth certificate arrived here. It showed that Merrill was born late in 1916 and that he already is twenty years old.

Although no school had even suggested that any of the players here were over the age limit and the truth could easily have concealed, school authorities decided to play fair and notified Wicht. This morning he came here and talked over the situation. His suggestion was that Mechanicsburg High send him a letter formally making the offer to forfeit the games. Letters are to go out also to rival schools.

"That can’t be the truth," was Merrill’s comment when he heard the news. He was almost heart-broken because he laves the game and wanted another season at football where he starred at center. He was a guard in basketball. He is a member of the junior class.

A final tragic event that occurred in the 1937 school year was the death of Coach George Vorbach. The Feb. 5 Local Daily News reported, George E. Vorbach, under whose brilliant direction Mechanicsburg High’s athletic teams swept to new heights in the past six years, died suddenly this morning at his home in the Hedges Apartments, West Main Street. He was 33 years old.

Death overtook him just as he was believed to have conquered a succession of illnesses that kept him from his class room and the gymnasium almost continuously since February 8. Only yesterday his physician believed he was improving rapidly and was in the most improved condition since pneumonia threatened his life more than a week ago.

He had had his breakfast this morning and appeared to be feeling fine. Mrs. Vorbach had gone down town on a shopping errand. She returned about 10 o’clock to find him in critical condition. His physician was summoned at once. The strain of the succession of a bad cold, a bad sinus condition, arthritis, and pneumonia had been too much for his heart, however, and at 10:15 he died.

In his six football seasons here Mechanicsburg finished on top of in the Southern Pennsylvania Conference for four years, winning three times in a row in 1932, 1933, and 1934. After a lapse in 1935 his team came back last Fall to win again and record the first undefeated season since 1924.

At basketball he was equally brilliant. His teams won one West Shore League championship and tied for another before the Southern Pennsylvania Conference Baseball League was started.

His most successful court season was that of 1935-36 when his team won the conference title with the loss of but a single game. That was the first and only time Mechanicsburg figured in a P.I.A.A. playoff.

He coached baseball in 1932 (9 - 3), 1933 (9 - 5), 1935 ((7 -4 - 1), 1936 ((6 - 6 - 2)