Thursday, January 31, 2008
Posey Oyler a visionary behind area sports hall
The Roanoke man, who died at 74, had a passion for baseball and loved to laugh.
The Roanoker will be quieter this morning.
Posey Oyler won't be along, ordering his regular one egg and two slices of bacon with a little gravy on the bacon and greeting friends and the rare stranger with his take on the latest goings-on in the world.
Oyler died Wednesday. He was 74.
"He was a great man; he touched lives," said his nephew Barry Shelton.
Oyler, a general contractor and insurance appraiser, was a longtime coach and administrator for American Legion Baseball and the founder and driving force behind the Salem-Roanoke Valley Baseball Hall of Fame.
"A great deal of his life was wrapped around sports," said Oyler's son, Gary Oyler.
The local hall of fame, which will induct five more members at its banquet Feb. 10, was Oyler's idea and his passion.
He carried much of the organization and work load for the hall's board of directors in planning the annual banquets and in constructing a building to house the hall.
The building stands inside the gates of Salem Memorial Baseball Stadium on property owned by the city. It is nearly complete but not yet ready to open.
"I hope the board members take up the torch and get that building open in Posey's name," said Carey Harveycutter, Salem's director of civic facilities.
Oyler had suffered a series of strokes over the past two years and had recently undergone surgery for a prostate problem, Gary Oyler said. Many of Oyler's family members gathered with him in the hospital Wednesday. His sisters sang gospel songs, Gary Oyler said.
Plans for a memorial service had not yet been finalized Wednesday night.
A lifelong Roanoker, except for his two-year tour with the Army from 1953 to 1955, Oyler's love of baseball began as a kid when he played the game in a cow pasture. His father, James H. Oyler, played for Norfolk and Western and for the Atlantic Greyhounds teams. Oyler used to sell refreshments at Roanoke Red Sox games in the 1940s.
Gary Oyler said his dad built the lower Green Valley baseball field and later two fields at Hidden Valley, putting up fences "back when they begged, borrowed or stole to get things done."
Oyler was an active supporter of Cave Spring High School baseball when his son played there and for a few years after. He started coaching an American Legion Post 3 team in 1978 and eventually became the District 9 chairman.
"About the only thing he loved more than baseball was the players," said Shelton, who played Legion ball for his uncle and is now an assistant baseball coach at the Virginia Military Institute. "He was tough, but it was more about playing the right way, playing hard, competing every day and having fun. ... It was a great experience, and I'm speaking for all the guys who played for him."
Oyler was strict with his players, always disappointed when a few would choose to take a trip to the beach for a week and miss Legion ball.
"He loved it so much he didn't understand why they would want to go to the beach," said E.C. Warren, a longtime friend and one-time owner of The Roanoker.
Shelton said he sometimes hears himself echo things he heard when Oyler was his coach.
"Mostly the humor," Shelton said.
Oyler loved to laugh, even taking glee in the confusion caused in 2003 when a man of the same name died and friends rushed to offer condolences. "Boy, were they disappointed," he said with a laugh when the story was straightened out.
Oyler could make a friend out of just about anybody he met, including country music legend George Jones, Baseball Hall of Famers Catfish Hunter and Brooks Robinson and National Rifle Association Chief Executive Officer Wayne LaPierre.
"That was his way, even in business," Gary Oyler said. "The bottom line is that it's not necessarily just business. You actually get to know people. And if he got into his mind that he was going to call Brooks Robinson, then he would call Brooks Robinson. And he [Robinson] would call him back."
John Saunders, assistant director of civic facilities in Salem, called Oyler "a 50 cent millionaire."
"He knew people who could get things done," Saunders said, recalling Oyler's using his influence to get Saunders' leaky roof fixed.
Oyler's father helped put in the flooring and paint at The Roanoker when it was first built, and Oyler took over that job. He persuaded the Warrens to hire his sister, Renee "Butch" Craft, and now Craft owns the restaurant and runs it with help from E.C. Warren.
Oyler had friends in high places, but just as many in more humble circumstances. Warren said Oyler volunteered to accompany a waitress at The Roanoker to court when she was battling a speeding ticket.
"He had a lot of friends, and he didn't forget them," Warren said.
But Oyler wasn't all smiles.
"He was extremely opinionated, and you don't want to be on the wrong side of that," Gary Oyler said. "Every one of us at times would want to take a brick to him. He was a unique person.
"He was old school. He'd shake your hand and tell you how it was."
Or he might just sit out front at The Roanoker and tell anyone who passed by how it was.
"We had customers tell us, 'You have to do something about that man,' " Warren said with a laugh at the idea that anybody would, or even could, "do something" about Oyler. "He's been part of our family for a long time."
