Called “one of the best hitting high school catchers I’ve ever scouted,” Harpo Tavares was a member of two Warren High School Rhode Island baseball championship teams.

Harpo’s baseball career in Warren started with his tenure on the famous Hitless Wonders who were coached by Ed Barry.  Then in 1943 he was a member of the combined Warren and Bristol nine that won the State Boys Under Sixteen Championship.

As a sophomore in high school, he was the starting catcher on Warren High’s Class C and State Baseball Champions of 1945.  The next season Captain Harpo hit .346 as Warren again captured the Class C and State Baseball Championships. 

And then in 1947 he was named All Class C and All State as the Class C Champions Redskins fell to La Salle in the final game of the state playoffs.

He signed with the St. Louis Cardinals, whose scout John Cusick made the complimentary comment included in the first paragraph.  He played in the Cardinals and Boston Braves farm systems from 1947 to 1949.

After playing baseball locally in the 1950s, Harpo was a key performer on the Federal Engineers/Smith’s Drug fast-pitch softball teams that captured six straight titles from 1956 to 1961.

Picture 1 from Hall of Fame archives

Picture 2 from 1998 Hall of Fame Inaugural Banquet