Year Inducted – 1995

The GABHOF has always maintained, the most important part of our history has been that of our sponsors, without whom we would not have organized baseball. Certainly none have handled the role better than Marshall Snider. He founded the Sohio A.C., a team that played out of Maple Valley Field. During those bleak days of the depression, he provided the means for hundreds of young athletes to participate. He sponsored two teams, a home town team and a traveling team that helped to spread Akron’s baseball name around Northern Ohio. He shuffled the players from team to team depending on the strength of the opposition. His generous attitude prompted Phil Dietrich, sports writer for the Akron Beacon Journal, to write a tribute, following his demise February 26, 1965, at the age of 67. Many of our current Hall of Famers owe their baseball start to this man’s devotion to the youth of the Maple Valley area, coupled with his love of baseball. He was a lean, lanky, tobacco chewing character who operated a Sohio gas station at the corner of Copley Rd. and Hawkins Avenue. It was not an unusual sight to see him raking and working on the ball field between oil changes and fill-ups.