The driving force behind the Salem-Roanoke Baseball Hall of Fame is still going strong.

Calls of condolence poured into Posey Oyler's office last spring when news of his demise hit the Roanoke Valley, only Oyler wasn't dead.

"Boy were they disappointed," Oyler joked, delightedly recounting how one friend had even gone to the viewing at Oakey's Funeral Home.

An obituary of a man with the same name, but a different spelling, had caused the widespread panic.

"Heaven forbid if he ever dies. I hope he lives forever. I don't know what we'd do without him," said Kelvin Bowles, owner of the Salem Avalanche baseball team and member of the Salem-Roanoke Baseball Hall of Fame board of directors.
 
Oyler has been the hall's president and driving force since it was born at a ballgame at old Municipal Field in Salem 12 years ago.
Under his guidance, the hall has held annual banquets with major-league guests, inducted 58 members and honored local high school athletes. Today at 11 a.m. it will break ground on permanent home nestled between the Avalanche offices and Salem Memorial Baseball Stadium.

"No one will be happier than Posey," said board member Sam Lazzaro. "It's his baby."

Of James H. and Fannie Oyler's seven children, Oyler claims to be "oldest and sweetest." His passion for baseball began in a cow pasture where he played with other kids growing up in Roanoke. His father played for Norfolk and Western and Atlantic Greyhound teams. As a kid, Oyler used to sell refreshments at Roanoke Red Sox games in the 1940s.

Oyler didn't have much time for play, though. He worked for his father, a contractor, from the time he was 9 years old. He got married at 17, but it didn't take.

Oyler joined the U.S. Army, serving with the 11th Airborne Division in Fort Campbell, Ky., from 1953 through '55. It was the only time Oyler lived outside the Roanoke Valley.

He married again, and this time it worked. He and Bobbie have been together for 44 years.

Their only child, Gary, drew Oyler back to baseball. Oyler started coaching Little League then Senior League. He agreed to manage an American Legion team when the Legion needed another team.

Oyler became director of baseball at Post 3 and eventually District 9 chairman. His Post 3 teams went 230-121 and won six regular-season championships from 1978-96.

"I worry about the kids a little bit, in this day and time especially," Oyler said. "I was a disciplinarian and a lot of times it's discipline they don't get in school and at home. I like to see them succeed and have fun, and not get pushed by the parents.

"There's not too many that are going very far - they'd as soon be struck by lightning. I hate when the parents boo and holler at them. There's too much pressure nowadays."

When Oyler heard Lazzaro and longtime Roanoke Times sportswriter Bob Teitlebaum discussing the possibility of a baseball hall of fame for the Roanoke Valley that fateful night at the Buccaneers game, he said "Let's do it."

With his usual take-charge style, in less than nine innings Oyler had roped in Lazzaro, Teitlebaum, Salem Times-Register sports editor Brian Hoffman and lawyer John Rocovich to serve on the board of directors. He recruited more members, including Bowles, Jack Bogaczyk, Carey Harveycutter, Ron Hodges, Wayne LaPierre and Edward Via, and announced a meeting at the end of the season.

"We all went along with it. Posey's ruled with an iron hand," Lazzaro said. "It never would've gotten off the ground."

Marion Powell, John Saunders and Charlie Hammersly later replaced LaPierre, Bogaczyk and Harveycutter on the board.

From the start, the hall's annual banquet and induction ceremony has been popular. They reserved a community room at the Salem Civic Center for the first banquet in 1992, but when 417 guests showed up they ended up having to put the buffet in the hall. They then moved to the main auditorium floor and crowds have grown to 700-800 guests each year.

"People come to the banquet from all walks of life," Oyler said. "We've got doctors, lawyers, judges. . . . There's black, white, whatever. I like that."

The board members share the workload, but Oyler carries the bulk. He sells ads for the program and tickets to the banquet, solicits donations for the hall building and generally handles things.

He is relentlessly persistent and can be blunt.

"He doesn't mind telling you what he thinks," Bowles said. "But I don't know anyone that he's made mad."

Oyler takes personal care of the banquet's guest speakers, all former major-leaguers and some Hall of Famers.

"He spends a lot of time with them on the phone before they get here and spends time with them once they come. They get treated royally," Lazzaro said. "The reputation of our hall has spread through baseball. . . .

"They realize Posey's just a good ol' guy. A lot of these places, it's all about dollars. . . . Posey's part of what makes the hall of fame special."

Once he's met one of these former major-leaguers, or anyone really, Oyler makes them a friend.

"It's an honor for me to meet a guy like Catfish Hunter or Brooks Robinson or Moose Skowron," Oyler said.

The hall's banquet in 1998 was one of the last public appearances for Hunter before he succumbed to ALS. Oyler kept in touch with Hunter as he struggled with the disease and with his widow after Hunter's death.

"I like people, most everybody," Oyler said.

In his youth, Oyler sang gospel music with his mother and sister performing in churches and on the radio. His sisters and a brother-in-law have formed a popular gospel group, The Oylers.

"I would sing with them, but I don't want to show 'em up," Oyler teased.

Besides, with all the time he puts into American Legion baseball and the hall of fame, Oyler barely has time to whistle while his tends to his general contracting and appraisal business.

"Just think," he said. "If I hadn't fooled with baseball, I'd probably have a lot of money."