Photographs capture tradition of WMA Baseball

Connecting with the past is one of the beautiful aspects of attending Wilbraham & Monson Academy.

Tradition isn’t just a word casually used in conversation. There’s history here, and that history carries meaning.

In the spring, with the help of some program supporters, the WMA Baseball team made a connection with its history, and that connection was captured for the players and coaches to remember forever.

Teddy Davis, whose son, Ted, played baseball at WMA and graduated in 2011, found and presented a black and white photograph of the Academy’s 1890 baseball team to Coach John Boozang. The players and coaches were seated on the steps of Smith Hall, which was originally a gymnasium.

“It was pretty cool,” Coach Boozang said. “So then, (baseball supporter) Steve Marcus said we should re-create that picture. We enlisted some help, started practice late one day, and got all the guys up on the steps for a picture.”

The picture of the 2012 team, taken in black and white form, closely resembled the 1890 photograph. Some of the players even had similar features.

“The guys were excited about it,” Coach Boozang said. “They had seen the other picture. We positioned each guy exactly or as close as we could. It was fun. Baseball has a lot of tradition here. It’s probably one of the oldest sports here. It was neat to link with the past.”

Most important was the reaction of the current players. They enjoyed linking to students who attended the school more than a century ago.

“Like most kids here, at some point in a student’s time at WMA they really get a sense of who has gone through the school in the past,” Coach Boozang said. “For the baseball players, to see proof in the form of a picture and then sit in the same spots as those kids . . . some of them even looked liked the kids in the picture. It gave our players a sense of pride to wear the baseball uniform and put into context how old this program is.”

And how much meaningful history there is at WMA.