Bring Out Your Dead

Inventor of T-Ball Dies

From the AP

By JAMES PRICHARD – 3/9/09

ALBION, Mich. (AP) — Jerry Sacharski crafted his first batting tee from metal piping, some pieces of rubber and part of a garden hose. Half a century later he still was coaching T-ball, a game that introduced baseball to millions of kids from backyards to the White House lawn.

Many in this college town of 9,100 give Sacharski the nod for being the architect of T-ball, though that kind of recognition made the longtime teacher uncomfortable. He figured that somebody, somewhere, had previously put a baseball on a tee