Longtime baseball coaches Dick Yates, Irv Brown, Jim Danley, Marc Johnson and Bill Fanning lead the first class of inductees into the Colorado Dugout Club’s Hall of Fame.
The 19 honorees, announced Tuesday, will be inducted at a banquet Jan. 15 at the Hyatt Denver Tech Center, 7800 Tufts Ave.
Tony Gwynn, a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame and a former San Diego Padres star, will be the keynote speaker.
Yates was a prominent high school baseball coach in the 1960s at Denver South. Brown coached at Arvada High School and the University of Colorado. Danley is a coaching legend at Eaton High School. Johnson, recently selected to the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame, has had an extraordinary coaching career at Cherry Creek High School. Fanning was a perennial winner at Grand Junction High School.
Other inductees are Bus Campbell, Jim Lacefield, Mert Letofsky, Dave Mumper, Bill Percy, Del Peterson, Tom Petroff, Tony Schenbeck, Sam Suplizio, Gene Taylor, Eddie Underwood, Willie White, Harry Wise and Art Wollenweber.
