Several members of the 1961 Topeka Reds minor league baseball team are pictured in this group of five color and eight black-and-white snapshots. The players featured in the photos include: Dave Bristol (manager, infielder), Tommy Harper (2b), Tommy Helms (ss), Art Shamsky (of), Mel Queen (3b), Larry Rancourt (c), Stan Jones (rhp), Miles McWilliams (1b), Sam Thompson (lhp), Al Kinney (rhp), Harvey Alex (rhp), Gerald Dawson (of), and Mickey Mattiace (rhp). Bristol became a major league manager; Harper, Helms, Shamsky, and Queen all became major league players. An affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds, the Topeka club competed in the Class B Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League, also known as the Three-I League. The Reds won the league pennant in 1961, finishing with a 79-50 record, 6.5 games ahead of the second-place Cedar Rapids Braves. The Reds' Tommy Harper also was named the League's MVP that year. When the Three-I League folded after the 1961 season, it spelled the end of Topeka's participation in Organized Baseball. Digital reproduction of the photographs was accomplished through a joint project by the Kansas Historical Society and the Shawnee County Baseball Hall of Fame.
Kansas Memory
Kansas Historical Society
Members of the 1961 Topeka Reds baseball team - Unidentified