Baseball has been a big part of Gene Handsberry’s life.
The lifelong Smyrna resident, now 81, can look back on a playing career that spanned from high school and college to a season in the minors and many years of semipro ball.
Handsberry is often reminded of those days while working at Smyrna Sporting Goods in downtown Smyrna.
“I still see some of the old teammates come in,” he said. “Of course most of them passed away, but there are still some left.”
Handsberry owned Smyrna Sporting Goods for 50 years, and continues to work there as an employee after selling the business in 2003.
Though it’s been quite some time since the end of his baseball career, Handsberry was recently recognized for his past accomplishments in the sport.
Handsberry was inducted into the Delaware Baseball Hall of Fame at a June 10 ceremony, held in the fourth inning of the Blue-Gold high school all-star baseball game at Frawley Stadium in Wilmington.
After playing four years of baseball at Smyrna High School, where he was a member of the class of 1947, Handsberry went on to play another four seasons at Washington College in Chestertown, Md.
Handsberry got the opportunity to take his baseball career to the next level when he was drafted by Philadelphia Athletics. He signed with the team in 1951 and played one season of minor league ball in Salisbury.
At the end of that season, Handsberry was drafted into the Army and served in Korea for two years.
Upon his return, he played many seasons of semipro baseball for the Smyrna and Kenton teams in the Mar-Del and Bi-State leagues.
“It was an era when semipro was big time,” he said, though those leagues have now disappeared. “We drew nice crowds in those days. It was a big thing for all of us.”
Handsberry, who played mostly at second base, always considered hitting to be his strong point.
One season, he led the Mar-Del League with a .462 batting average.
Handsberry’s involvement with baseball also went beyond the field.
He was at the first organizational meeting for the Smyrna-Clayton Little League in the late 1950s.
He also coached for a number of years in Smyrna-Clayton Little Lass, where his daughters played softball.
“The best years of my life were coaching those girls,” Handsberry said.
His daughter Joy became a star softball pitcher at Smyrna High in the mid ’80s, and she continues to play softball in Santa Fe, N.M., where she teaches high school calculus.
In addition to his recent induction into the Delaware Baseball Hall of Fame, Handsberry is also a member of the Eastern Shore Baseball Hall of Fame in Salisbury, where he was inducted in 2000.
