A star in the Warren versus Bristol Baseball Little World Series, Frankie Mello was the Most Valuable Player of the 1934 Warren Twilight Baseball League.  He also starred in semi-professional football, leading the Riverside Coronas to the state championship in 1932.

Frankie played for the Warren Townies and Wanderers football teams between 1929 and 1934; as noted above, he “crossed the border” in 1932 and helped lead the Coronas to the state title.  His Warren elevens placed second in the state in both 1929 and 1933, and in 1930 “his dazzling end runs” produced the game’s only score in a defeat of the Coronas.  While playing for the Coronas two years later, the local Warren Gazette enthused that he “not only made consistent gains for the winners, but tore in fast to smash up the play of the opposition.”

In the Little World Series, he hit .385 over four competitions.  In 1930 he hit .800, including four hits in Warren’s second win.  Warren won three straight in 1935, with Frankie keying the second victory by dashing up the hill, spearing the ball with a gloved hand, and then falling over; he had four hits in the clinching game.  1936 was a different story, as Bristol won the Series in three straight games.  They won the second game with a five-run rally in the ninth inning, a rally that was keyed by Frankie’s boot at second base and his subsequent strenuous argument with the base umpire.  While he unsuccessfully argued that he had tagged second before the runner, that opponent circled the bases to score.

Frankie was the leading hitter (.463) in the 1934 Warren Twilight Baseball League and was named both the league’s Most Valuable Player and the All Star left fielder.  A year later he played for the title-winning Narries, while batting .419 and being named to the All Star second team.  (In 1933 he was robbed of a homer when his line drive hit a spectator standing on top of the right-center field hill and fell to the outfield for a double.)

In 1943 Frankie and many others founded the Warren Junior Twilight Baseball League.

Picture from Hall of Fame archives (1930 Wanderers)