Late last week, the Hemet Sportsman’s Club awarded recent Tahquitz graduate, and member of the Titans baseball team, Ezra Farmer, the Bill Gray Award. Farmer was given the award as honor for being the most outstanding baseball player in the San Jacinto Valley.
Gray founded the Bill Gray Baseball School, which was open to the youth of the valley in 1950. He was active in Hemet Youth Baseball, served as scout for the L.A. Dodgers, was a high school and college umpire and managed semi-pro baseball teams in Los Angeles.
The Bill Gray Park in Hemet is named in his honor. Guest instructors like future Baseball Hall of Famers Don Drysdale and Sparky Anderson would regularly make their way out to Hemet to help Gray out.
Accepting the award was his father, Emmit, as Ezra was in Wichita playing in the Sunflower Collegiate League at the time of the award ceremony.
JP Raineri can be reached by emailing sports@reedermedia.com.
