Thursday, September 22, 2022
Lloyd McClendon never stopped hitting home runs. A Regional Advisory Board Member for First Merchants Bank, Lloyd was recently honored for his contributions in another field: baseball.
In a feature on NWI.com – a Times Media Co. publication serving Northwest Indiana – Lloyd shared what it was like to be a member of the first all-Black team to advance to the World Series – the Anderson Little Leaguers, from Gary, Ind.
It’s an event that changed the face of sports history, and that landed Lloyd in the Gary Sports Hall of Fame just last month.
"At the time, we didn't really understand the impact we had,” McClendon shared with NWI. "People are still talking about it 50 years later and you realize it was a tremendous impact not only from the economic standpoint but also from the everyday life standpoint, how people viewed each other and how people looked at black people. …You marvel at the innocence of it when it was all happening. We didn't really realize what was going on. Looking back now, (you think), 'Wow, we made a difference.'"
But that experience has pushed Lloyd to advocate for and create opportunities for other young folks to discover the life-changing power of baseball.
