Fish Report Forerunners - Midwestern Ohio Memories

This is a guest blog by an anonymous Fish Report reader as part of a series of periodic posts that will focus on cherished memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s


Fish Report Forerunners

Many years before Fish Report Live’s Craig Fiessinger and Ken Francis were the voice for local sports in midwestern Ohio, there were two brothers from Ft. Loramie who were also avid sports fans. They announced and kept score at local sporting events as shown in this photo of the brothers, Bill (Bus) and Joe Borchers (center & right). The two brothers also ran their family grocery, appropriately named Borchers Store. All their customers would get the latest local sporting news from them, sort of like the services Fish Report so effectively provides. I distinctly recall buying bubble gum baseball cards at the store, opening them up and one of the brothers undoubtedly would share a story about the players in the package.

The photo of the Borchers brothers at a 1947 Loramie baseball game was possibly taken by my uncle, who was about 22 at the time, was in college after serving in the Navy during WWII. He loved baseball and photography. A few years later after graduating from college, my uncle got married, landed a job with John Deere, and was transferred all over the world during his career, including a stint in Corning, NY. Fast forward 68 years and the photo landed on eBay for sale by someone in Corning, NY. No doubt my uncle and his family, before one of their moves, had a garage sale to get rid of some stuff, including a bunch of old photos, because the NY eBay seller was offering a batch of other Loramie area photos, mostly of Lake Loramie and the campgrounds. Anyway, I routinely search for items on eBay related to local communities around where I grew up and found this photo offered on-line. Since I recognized the two brothers, the eBay offering was forwarded to one of the brothers’ daughters, with whom I went to high school. She ended up winning the eBay auction for the photo and also graciously provided a print for me. So this blog is in honor of the Borchers brothers, who provided such a positive influence on local sports back in the day just as Fish Report does today. (Does anybody know the others in the photo including the kid who looks like Beaver Cleaver behind the bleachers – he’d be about 80 today?)