Leonard “Shorty” Blanton, who coached the Ashland Tomcats baseball team for only three years but his legacy includes a state championship in 1968 and state runner-up finish in 1969, died in Florida on Aug. 30. He was 94.

Blanton took over the Tomcats’ baseball job in 1968 after Zeke Meyers had led Ashland to back-to-back state titles in 1966 and 1967. Meyers, who took an administration position at Marshall University following his time in Ashland, went 47-4 in two seasons including a perfect 25-0 in 1967.

Even though the cupboard was hardly bare, who wanted to replace that coaching legend?

Blanton told me a few years ago in an interview for the book Tomcat Dynasty he got the job because “no one else wanted it.” During those days the principal selected the coaches for the so-called “minor” sports of track and baseball. He appointed Blanton to be the baseball coach.

A good football coach at several levels in the Ashland system, including the junior varsity coach the year the Tomcats won the state title in 1967 and the head coach at Coles Jr. High in 1971, Blanton admittedly didn’t have a wealth of baseball knowledge and had never coached the sport on any level. And now he was taking over the two-time defending state champions with a wealth of returning players, including Bobby Lynch, John Mullins, Steve Hemlepp, Fred Leibee, Tim Huff, Bo Carter, Dave Staten and Mike Tackett. These days people would be knocking each other over to get that job.

Lynch and Hemlepp were like unofficial assistant coaches and knew the team better than anyone. Blanton said he welcomed their suggestions and knew these Tomcats were not just good at baseball, they were good at winning.

It proved to be true as those Tomcats became Kentucky’s first program to win three consecutive state championships. It did not happen again until Pleasure Ridge Park won it from 1994-96.

Blanton said the players taught him a lot about baseball and were “easy to coach.”

The ’68 champions finished 23-3 and surrendered only one run in three games in the state tournament. Lynch won two of those games, including being the winning pitcher in the finals for the second time in three years. If not for a strange scoring decision, he would have been the winning pitcher in all three championship games.

But what Blanton did with the ’69 team was the most surprising. He took them back to the state tournament and reached the finals where they dropped a 1-0 decision to Owensboro in heartbreaking fashion.

In the state championship game against Owensboro, a pair of errors brought home the winning run – and only run of the game – in the bottom of the seventh inning. There may have been three errors since the baserunner was thought to have missed third. Ashland never protested. Leonard talked about that play nearly 50 years later.

“Someone told me the runner didn’t even touch third base,” he said. “I missed it and none of my boys saw it either. Who knows? The umpire may not have noticed either. I guess we’ll never know.”

The Tomcats finished 19-4 including a 1-0 victory over Don Gullett-led McKell in the regional semifinals in Morehead. Ashland had only one hit in the game, a triple from Dave Damron who then scored the game’s only run on Tackett’s sacrifice fly. Gullett struck out 11 and allowed the lone hit but Huff outdueled him.

“Those guys were outstanding, some of the best in the state, and they knew how to win, too,” Blanton said. “It’s a shame it turned out like it did.”

Blanton was not planning on coming back for the 1970 season after that stinging loss and announced in the newspaper that Steve Gilmore would be replacing him. But that didn’t happen until the following year. Blanton coached the Tomcats to a 12-10 season in 1970, losing in the regional finals to Russell.

He finished his high school coaching career with a 54-17 record. Not bad for somebody who admitted having limited baseball coaching knowledge when he took the job.

Blanton was much more than a good coach, though. He was a fine Christian gentleman, husband and father and a friendly and popular man in Ashland. His wife, Ada, who died in 2020, was a beautiful lady and powerful singer who was crowned Mrs. Kentucky in 1968. She represented the state along with the 1968 Miss Kentucky and Col. Harland Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame on the Kentucky state float during the inauguration parade for President Richard Nixon in Washington, D.C., in 1968.

Shorty and Ada sang together in church at Unity Baptist and in local dramas and musicals. They have a son, Ted Blanton, who played on Ashland’s 1967 state football championship team.

Blanton was born in 1931 and graduated from Ashland High School in 1949. He played on the Tomcats’ 1946-1948 football teams. He rushed for 339 yards and had 152 yards receiving while scoring five touchdowns on a 5-4-1 team in ’48 that was ranked No. 3 in the final AP state poll. The losses and tie came to four out-of-state teams (Charleston, Stonewall Jackson, Huntington High, Ironton and Portsmouth).