Team Introduction: The Richmond Rifles

The LBL’s only current “southern” ballclub, the Richmond Rifles represent a remnant of the once-prestigious “Cotton Belt” clubs, long-since scattered into disarray following the collapse of the National League. 

A visionary project of the prominent Virginia tobacco magnate Michael J. Monroe, the Rifles of Richmond are a proud and aging ballclub of former greats among the barnstorming circles of inland Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas.  The Rifles play uptown among shady Poplars Dogwoods, and Willow Oaks in the newly constructed Libby Hill Park, a gift to Mister Monroe’s wife that overlooks the James River.  Libby Hill is a lovely, open ballpark with grandstands boasting breathtaking view of the James River and Upper Shockoe Valley.

The son of a well-known Virginia landowner, Michael J. Monroe was a key figure in organizing the Legacy Baseball League, providing significant personal funds for the league’s charter.  The Rifles ballcub, some say, was Monroe’s demand for providing a significant portion of the League’s initial funding.  The patriarch of a sprawling commercial empire and longtime Cotton Belt baseball rooter, Monroe donated his summer home and hilltop courtyard for the new Rifles field, named for his wife.  The observatory of the Monroe family, from which they watch the games, looms just over the right field line. Monroe offers $50 cash to any Rifle batter who can plunk the tower with a baseball.

The Rifles are managed by Mr. Jarod Zunker, a Maryland native and former Marlboro Mack of the Cotton Belt Leagues.  Zunker, a wiry, tobacco-hawking ballplayer with a generally taciturn demeanor, is known to have coined the LBL term “Zunk,” that is, to unexpectedly unleash fury on an unsuspecting umpire.  Zunker, a former All-League pitcher in the Cotton Belt League, played for years with or against most of the members of the Rifles clubhouse. 

General Management of the ballclub is left to Mister Preston T. Kirby, hero of the Battle of Chancellorsville.  Private Kirby served as aide to Confederate General Jubal Early (elevated purely to allow Early’s Division to dominate an exhibition game.)  Finding himself among the General’s staff amidst a Union attack, Private Kirby saved Early’s life, earning accolades from the Confederacy and a dead leg from union artillery.  Kirby still went on to set various batting records in the Cotton Belt Leagues; the limping slugger had two hits: over the fence, and out. Many old-timers still call the GM “Old Over-and-Out Kirby.”

The Rifles’ aging lineup includes sagely southpaw Phil Ledford, Richmond native and longtime Cotton Belt hurler Winston Hughes, and base-stealing wunderkind Cooper Fowler–who some say is the future of the Rifles. 

Ensconced in the fading glory of tough, dirty play, the Richmond Rifles are a proud and storied collection of players representing the best of late-century southern baseball.  Time will tell if they can look beyond their proud Cotton Belt roots to a broad, national future.