Mikel D. Smith 
The Somerset Ball 
From Wiffle Ball to Brooks Stadium: a Journey to the 1970 Khsaa Tournament

The 1970 Tilghman baseball team was a conglomeration of students from all over Paducah, a town of about thirty thousand in West Kentucky. The Blue Tornado already had a proud history of success in football, basketball, track and baseball.

However, little was expected from this years team. Fielding a starting roster and coaches with limited experience, the team began with a mediocre record, but became a tough opponent as the season progressed- ultimately surprising everyone by making it to the finals of the Kentucky State High School Tournament. The tournament was one of the most memorable in Kentucky sports history, including teams from Madisonville, Louisville Trinity, Lexington Lafayette, Somerset, Russell, Covington Catholic, Elizabethtown and Paducah Tilghman.

This is a story about growing up in a small Midwestern town – remembering life in Paducah and a tribute to the great players across the State as told through photographs, statistics, news accounts and memories of the 1960s.

About the author

Mikel D. Smith, MD is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiology at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. He grew up in Paducah, Kentucky, and was a 1970 graduate of Paducah Tilghman High School, where he played baseball in his senior year. The great memories of his childhood and his love of sports inspired him to write this book.