Wolverine History: How Mill-Hill Textile Baseball Made Woodruff a Baseball Town

Part eight of The Woodruff Times series "Moments That Changed Wolverine History," written by Garrett Mitchell and published March 16, 2021, goes back before the high school era to the mill-hill baseball fields. Here is our summary.

From the early 1900s into the 1950s, the paper writes, mill teams across the South played competitive baseball for pride and for money. Woodruff, Cross Anchor and Enoree were part of that world, with teams from the Abney, Mills Mill and Riverdale mills. Mills recruited good players away from rival mills with better pay, and major-league scouts watched the textile leagues for talent.

The best-known Woodruff name from that era is Jack "Ox" Taylor, remembered as the "Babe Ruth of Woodruff." The article retells the local lore about him: home-run balls landing in a neighbor's garden near Mills Mill Ballpark, and a poplar behind the right-field fence said to have died from all the balls that hit it. The paper presents these as legends handed down, not verified facts. Much of the history comes from Pamela Chaffin Foster's book "Mills Mill Pals" and from the players' families.

Several area players reached the major leagues, according to the article. Sam Page pitched one season for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1939. Bobby Hazle won the 1957 World Series with the Milwaukee Braves and earned the nickname "Hurricane" Hazle. Ox Taylor's son Sammy Taylor played more than a decade in the majors, with the Cubs, Mets and Indians among his teams. Another son, Claudell Taylor, won state titles at Woodruff High in baseball and football under a young coach named Willie Varner.

The article also profiles Clyde "Hamm" Werner of Laurens. He played in the Yankees' minor-league system, served in the Navy in World War II, and later played textile ball in the area. Family lore says he was once ordered out of Woodruff after a brawl at Abney Mill. Yet he went on to become the town's first youth sports director, and his name is on the baseball field at McKinney Park.

By the early 1950s the mills were putting their money elsewhere, and the textile leagues faded. American Legion and high school baseball took their place, and the paper credits the textile-era families with passing the love of the game down to every Woodruff generation since.

The full story, with family photos courtesy of Pamela Chaffin Foster, is at The Woodruff Times link below.