Hatchet Baseball

Season by Season

Baseball All-Time Records

COACH STEVE WALKER

(Hatchet Baseball Coach from 1975-1992)

ALL-TIME COACHING WINS LEADER AT WHS

269 WINS 141 LOSSES 1 TIE  .656

17 CONSECUTIVE SEASONS OF 10 WINS OR MORE

4 SECTIONAL TITLES

CHARLES "CHUCK" HARMON

(FORMER HATCHET BASEBALL GREAT)

Charles Harmon was known as a basketball star throughout Washington and Southern Indiana.  After all, he led the Hatchets to the state basketball championship in 1941 and 1942.  He was a member of the 1942 Indiana All-Star Team, the 1967 Indiana Hall of Fame Silver Anniversary Team and a 1989 inductee into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame.  He led the University of Toledo basketball team to the NIT finals in 1943 and was a college All-American.  In 1950, the Boston Celtics invited him to try out for their team and later was a player-coach with the Utica (New York) basketball team in the old Eastern League.  Even his favorite sport was basketball.  But with his enormous baseball talents, he became the only Washington Hatchet ever to play major league baseball.

While at Toledo, Harmon not only played basketball but also lettered 3 years in baseball.  In the summer of 1947, he played for the Indianapolis Clowns for a week in the old Negro Leagues under the alias "Charley Fine".  A month later, he signed a minor league contract with the St. Louis Browns.  For 5 consecutive seasons, he hit over .300 in the minors but couldn't break through big league bigotry.  Finally, on April 17,1954 he made his major league debut as the Cincinnati Reds first African-American player.  He played 4 years before retiring at the end of the 1957 season.  He was a lifetime .238 hitter with 7 home runs and 59 rbi's.

Harmon was inducted into the Indiana Baseball Hall of Fame in 1995.  For years, the Washington Little League played its games on Harmon Field.  When new fields were built at the Washington Sports Complex in 1996, the games moved locations but Harmon's name did not.  So in 1997, the city named the street leading to the fields "Harmon Drive".  Also in 1997, the Reds honored him with "Chuck Harmon Day".  On March 28, 2003 Harmon threw out the first pitch at the first exhibition game in Cincinnati's new Great American Ball Park.