Sports
Baseball signed by Pete Gray
Baseball
American's favorite pastime has also been popular in Nanticoke.
In the early 1900s, the Honey Pot section of Nanticoke had a baseball team called the Nanticoke White Sox.
Pete Gray is one of Nanticoke's most well-known baseball players. Having lost his arm when he was a youth, Pete grew up to play major league baseball for the St. Louis Browns in the 1940s. A movie was made of his life called A Winner Never Quits, with Gray being played by Keith Carradine.
Steve Bilko was another Nanticoke resident who played major league baseball. He played for the Los Angeles Angels in the 1950s and was MVP three years in a row, 1955-1957. TV's Sgt. Bilko was named after him.
Stanley "Bunny" Galazin played center for the New York Giants 1937-1939.
Bowling
Bowling was also very popular in Nanticoke as well as Luzerne County with numerous leagues competing. General Cigar sponsored bowling teams named after its popular brands: the White Owls, the Robert Burns, the Van Dycks and the William Penns. Nanticoke resident Leonard Wentz wrote a weekly newspaper column for the Sunday Independent devoted to bowling called "Spilling the Pins."
Basketball
Nanticoke was well-known for its high school basketball teams, and its local parochial "feeder" schools that prepared the players. Nanticoke High School won the state championship in Basketball in 1923, 1926 and 1961.
Resources for further study:
Kashatus, William C. One-Armed Wonder: Pete Gray, Wartime Baseball, and the American Dream. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 2001.
Kashatus, William C. Diamonds in the coalfields: 21 remarkable baseball players, managers, and umpires from northeast Pennsylvania. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2002.
Klima, John. The game must go on: Hank Greenberg, Pete Gray, and the great days of baseball on the home front in WWII. 2015.
Salin, Tony. Baseball's forgotten heroes: one fan's search for the game's most interesting overlooked players. Lincolnwood, Ill: Masters Press. 1999.
Beers, Paul B. Profiles in Pennsylvania sports: athletic heroes and exploits from past and present in the Commonwealth where sports are almost everyone's passion. Harrisburg, Pa: Stackpole Books. 1975.
White, Gaylon H. The Bilko Athletic Club: The Story of the 1956 Los Angeles Angels. , 2014.