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Walter “Smokey” Alston, needs no introduction, as his sports accomplishments with the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers are well documented. However, very few people are aware that the great manager of the Dodgers started out as a baseball and basketball star at Darrtown School, just outside of Oxford. A 1928 graduate, “Smokey” was a dominant force in Darrtown athletics. One season, he scored all the points for the basketball team in defeating their opponents. His athletic contribution to Darrtown School is in a class by itself.

After Darrtown, Walter Alston continued playing baseball and basketball at Miami University, where the nickname “Smokey” originated from how hard he threw a baseball. He graduated from Miami University in 1932, and was part of the legendary “Gas House Gang” in the St. Louis baseball organization, under the direction of Branch Rickey. “Smokey” was a player manager in the St. Louis farm system for years, before Mr. Rickey took him to New York to manage the Dodgers in 1954. During his 23 years with the Dodgers, “Smokey” led the Brooklyn franchise to its only World Championship in 1955, and to a pennant in 1956, before the team moved to the West Coast. In Los Angeles, his clubs captured world titles in 1959, 1963, and 1965, and world titles in 1959, 1963, and 1965, and pennants in 1966 and 1974. The Dodgers finished in the first division 19 times in those 23 years, winning 2,040 games.

It is indeed with great pride that we induct Walter “Smokey” Alston into the first class of the Talawanda Athletic Hall of Fame.