A generation of fans knew Howie Burns as a basketball coach, but it’s always been baseball that people with longer memories associate with him.
Burns had record-setting success in both sports, but it’s his baseball achievements that will be honored Thursday night with the third annual induction ceremony of the Western Massachusetts Baseball Hall of Fame.
The event will be held at La Quinta Inn of Springfield. Burns and longtime Hampshire County coach Dave Grills will be among seven individual honorees.
The others include former major leaguers Wayne Granger and Fran Healy, Major League Baseball Hall of Famer Leo Durocher, former Boston Red Sox public address announcer Carl Beane and veteran Red Sox scout Ray Fagnant.
The Chicopee High School teams of the early 1960s will be honored as a unit. Of the individual honorees, Durocher and Beane are deceased.
The selections of Burns and the Chicopee High teams puts a spotlight on two incredible mini-dynasties of the 1960s. Each won three straight state titles.
Burns’ teams at Springfield Technical reached the pinnacle from 1968 to 1970. They set the standard for Springfield city baseball and went 55-5 with a 41-game winning streak that still stands as a record.
He was also a coach of East Springfield Post 420, one of the premier teams at the state and at times national levels of American Legion summer baseball.
Burns was also a successful long-time coach at Westfield State College and in the summer Tri-County League. Known as a feisty competitor and a top-flight baseball strategist, Burns kept Tech and East Springfield American Legion Post 420 at or near the top of state baseball throughout the 1970s and led Post 420 to a Legion World Series.
When Tech and Classical High Schools merged to become Central High, Burns bolstered his other resume – basketball. He led Central to the 1987 and 1991 state titles, the first by a Division I team from Western Massachusetts.
Like Burns, Grills is a member of the Massachusetts Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame. At Williamsburg High and its successor, Hampshire Regional, he won more than 300 varsity and junior varsity games.
A 1986 Western Massachusetts champion, Grills is still active as Mark Baldwin’s assistant at Northampton High School. Grills began coaching in 1959, which makes him a baseball rarity – a seven-decade coach.
Former Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee will be the keynote speaker at the Hall of Fame induction dinner.
