Granby great Stobbs always wondered about path he'd chosen

When Chuck Stobbs was in Portsmouth six years ago for his enshrinement in the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame, he wondered aloud if he had chosen the correct path after Granby High.

"My biggest ambition," he said, "was playing college football and going to the Rose Bowl. I regret sometimes even now not going to school and finding out if I could have played football."

As many of the best athletes did in those days, Stobbs played football, basketball and baseball in high school. Baseball, he told me in 2002, was his least favorite sport but, when his powerful left arm attracted the attention of the Boston Red Sox, Stobbs joined the franchise as a $35,000 bonus baby. That was a lot of money in 1947.

By 19, Stobbs was a starter for the 1949 Red Sox team that lost the pennant to the Yankees on the season's final weekend. He won 11 games that summer, a highlight of the bumpy 15-year big league journey that he finished with a record of 107-130.

His career, he said, "was all right. It wasn't the best, but it sure as hell wasn't the worst."

Stobbs lived the last 37 years of his life in Sarasota, Fla. When he passed away from cancer at 79 on July 11, Hank Foiles remembered him as "one of the greatest athletes that ever came out of the state of Virginia."

That's a fair assessment. I n his day, no one dominated the high school sports landscape more than Stobbs did.

Foiles, who went on to a major league career as a catcher, played center on the three undefeated state championship football teams that showcased Stobbs' quarterbacking skills.

"At 16," recalled Foiles, a 1987 inductee in the Virginia Hall, "he could thread a needle from 60 yards."

Colleges took notice of Stobbs, who was named the state's outstanding high school player as a senior. Virginia, North Carolina, Michigan, Ohio State and Navy showed serious interest.

Stobbs was All-State two years in basketball and received scholarship offers from several big-time schools, but it was his deft performance in Granby's single-wing attack that turned him into a local legend.

During the war years, Granby played before crowds as large as 27,000 at Foreman Field. The team was a juggernaut and its best players grew to be city-wide celebrities.

One of them, former wingback Barney Gill, went on to play football at Virginia and coach at Army. Gill said he thinks football was Stobbs' best sport. He tells the story of a game against Fork Union, another of those epic struggles in Foreman Field, and how Granby was pinned at its 2 -yard line when Stobbs went back to punt.

"He kicked the ball 65 yards in the air," is how Gill remembers that day.

In 1953, Stobbs was traded to the Washington Senators. During the '56 season, he was 15-15 for the perennial footwipes.

"That was like winning 30 games for the Yankees," Foiles said.

This reminded him of the time the Redskins and Senators played one of their annual touch football games in old Griffith Stadium. The Skins quarterback was the diminutive Eddie LeBaron.

"Chuck outpassed LeBaron," Foiles said, "and he out-punted their punter."

Maybe Stobbs would have gone on to play quarterback for a big-name college if it wasn't for a serendipitous first step on the path to pitching. As Gill tells it, the strapping lefthander with the big hands had never pitched before and was playing first base as a 10th grader.

"But one day, our only starting pitcher got hurt," Gill recalls. "Our coach says, 'Chuck, can you pitch?' He went out and pitched a one-hitter."

In Portsmouth six years ago, I hesitantly brought up the mammoth home run Stobbs surrendered to Mickey Mantle in 1953, the shot that followed Stobbs the rest of his life. Mantle's drive was remarkable because it cleared the roof at Griffith Stadium and helped introduce baseball fans to the phrase "tape-measure home run." One of the longest homers ever recorded, it was measured at 565 feet.

When I asked about his pitch to Mantle, Stobbs offered a wry smile.

"I'm just glad," he said, "he didn't hit it back at me."

Bob Molinaro, (757) 446-2373, bob.molinaro@pilotonline.com