LE ROY PENNYSAVER & NEWS - MARCH 8, 2015 Stuart “Vic” Willis by Lynne Belluscio Last week I was checking daughters, Mrs. John McCul- the website – “LeRoy Then and ley and Mrs. John Carmichael Now” – and noticed that Mike and Mrs. Earl Sheard of Stone Vinci had posted a picture of a Church. He played for the LeRoy paper envelope from Vic Willis’ Athletics and we have an article Sports Shop that he had found in from the front page of the Roch- an old Union Steel Chest tackle ester Democrat and Chronicle of box. Several folks posted com- 1927: “LeRoy’s Championship ments, including some of Vic’s Club.” “ The grand old relatives. I asked Mike, that if he vet, Vic Willis, pitched himself didn’t want to keep the envelope, to glory, and the LeRoy Athletics that it would be great to have it at into the championship of Western the Historical Society, and he was New York out at Baseball Park kind enough to donate it to the yesterday afternoon when LeRoy collection. We are pretty sure that defeated Fairport’s fighting base- it held fishing hooks or leaders. ball machine in the final game of In the meantime, we started to the little , 5 to 1. With do a little research. I found some the victory, the National Clothing articles in our clipping file, and Company trophy, symbolic of the then when Ruth Harvie came in championship of Western New last Thursday, I asked her what York, goes to the LeRoy club.” she knew. She said that a while Vic enjoyed being outdoors ago, George Hall stopped by and and spent time hunting and fish- brought in a similar envelope. ing in Canada and the Adiron- She made a copy and said that dacks. He operated the sporting she had found some other in- goods shop for a while and formation including an ad in the worked for the IRS for sixteen 1931 Oatkan. The ad mentioned years. He also worked for the that the sporting goods store was Genesee County Department in the “Wiss Block.” Right now, of this company at the general sending Ritter into 2nd place.” of Welfare for a while and was I am not sure if that is the Wiss offices and Taylor lost Vic played semi professional and appointed Undersheriff in 1936 Hotel, or another building that no time in securing his services. professional baseball for a while. under Sheriff Forrest Brown. He Wiss owned. That will need some He held the Ritter Dental bunch He moved to LeRoy about the died in 1949 and was buried in more sleuthing. helpless while his team scored 3 time he married Marion Rogers Machpelah Cemetery. Stuart “Vic” Willis, was born runs across the plate giving him a in 1913, and they lived at 22 in Springwater on September 8, victory by the score of 3 to 1 and Lincoln Avenue. They had three 1885. He was the son of Wil- liam and Orika Stuart Willis. He graduated from Geneseo Normal School and attended Rochester Business Institute. He was first employed as a clerk in Rochester for the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railroad and for a while at the Times Union. While he worked at the railroad he played on their semi-pro team. Apparently he was a pretty good , and he took his nickname “Vic” from a well-known profes- sional pitcher, Vic Willis (who is in the Baseball Hall of Fame.) An account of one game was published in the November 1918 “B.R. & P. Employe Magazine.” It was during the last game of the season and the B.R.&P. team had to play the Ritter Dental team, which was favored 2 to 1 to win. “But quite unheralded “Vic” Willis, one of the best left-handed in Western New York had entered the employ