Donald E. “Don” Hopple, son of Frederick E. Hopple and Maude E. [Goodman] Hopple of Gratz, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, born 16 March 1932, was a minor league baseball player for the Cincinnati Reds, National League, baseball organization in 1955. At that time he was a catcher for the Level B team based at Sunbury, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania.
While living in the Gratz area, Don Hopple was a member of the Valley View American Legion team, and from that experience he was scouted by several major league teams including the Boston Red Sox, St. Louis Browns, and New York Giants. However, he chose to stay close to his family. The 1955 offer which was to play in Sunbury, allowed him to play professional baseball and remain near home.
At the time of this blog post, Don Hopple is living in Millersburg, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania.
The above photograph appeared in the Citizen-Standard (Valley View, Pennsylvania) of 28 June 2018 and was identified as from when Hopple played for the Reds farm team in 1955. However, the letter on the uniform is a “G” rather than a “C” and therefore the photo may be from a few years earlier when he played for a Gratz team.
The picture shown below was cropped from a 1952 photograph of the Gratz Baseball Team:
The 1952 Gratz team was previously featured here:
For further information about Don Hopple, see:
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Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.