Joe Branzell

Joe Branzell was born in Washington, D.C. on December 6, 1918. After a tour in the Navy, he joined the staff of the Jelleff branch of the Washington Boys Club in Georgetown in 1939 and was named its director in 1953. He coached the Washington Boys Club teams in the Clark Griffith League from 1949 to 1962, and the Boys Club/Federal Storage teams won twelve consecutive CGL championships from 1951 to 1962 and three national championships of the All American Amateur Baseball Association. In 1962, he left the Boys Club to begin a 35-year career as a major league scout, first with the Washington Senators and later with the Texas Rangers. After his death in 1997, the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York acquired his radar gun, one of the first in the country, and his scouting reports on major leaguers including Nolan Ryan and Cal Ripken Jr. The first annual Joe Branzell All-Star Game was played at Shirley Povich Field on June 30, 1999, when the Clark Griffith League All-Stars defeated the Eddie Brooks League All-Stars 2-1. The game honors the memory of a man who dedicated his life to baseball and to the youth of the Washington, D.C. area.

Potomac, Maryland · United States