Appalachian Figures Series – The Story of Walker James “Foots” Cress of Lee, Virginia
In the spring of 1936, the Powell Valley News carried a short local notice with a misspelled headline that still captured a young man on the rise. “BASKET BLL STAR,” it read, before telling readers that Walker Cress, a former Pennington High School basketball standout, had made a name for himself at Hiwassee College.
The details were striking. Cress was only a freshman, but he had scored 336 points in 20 games. The paper said he stood six feet four inches tall, had been selected for the All Southern College Team, and had already received offers from larger colleges. Back home in Lee County, people knew he had lettered at Pennington High in baseball, basketball, and football. He had also been selected for the 1935 All County Basketball Team.
That short newspaper item gives us the clearest local beginning of Walker James Cress, later known in baseball records as “Foots” Cress. Before he became a Cincinnati Reds pitcher, before his name appeared in LSU baseball history, and before he spent years connected to youth baseball in Baton Rouge, he was a tall athlete from Lee County whose promise was first noticed in the school gyms and ball fields around Pennington Gap.
A Lee County Beginning
Walker James Cress was born on March 6, 1917, in Lee County, Virginia. Most official baseball references give his birthplace as Ben Hur, while compiled genealogy material connects the family to Poor Valley. The difference is worth noting, but it does not move the story far. Both places belong to the same Lee County world that shaped him.
The Cress family line ties him to William Allen Cress and Laura Alice Morris. Compiled family records place William Allen Cress in Lee County by the early twentieth century and note the family’s later connection to Ben Hur. The same genealogy record places young Walker in the family household in Lee County in the 1930 census, at about thirteen years old.
By that time, Lee County was already a place where school sports, coal camps, church gatherings, and local papers helped turn promising young people into community names. A teenager did not have to reach a major league mound to be noticed. He first had to show up in the county record, in a school report, in a box score, or in the memory of neighbors who watched him play.
Walker Cress did that early.
Pennington High and the First Local Mentions
The Powell Valley News was already printing Walker Cress’s name by the early 1930s. In one 1933 local item, he appears among those present at a community gathering. In another sports note from that same year, the paper reported on Pennington’s baseball team and described Cress pitching for Pennington in a game against Flatwoods. The report said he went the full nine innings and looked promising.
That word fits the early record well. Promising.
At Pennington High, Cress was not remembered as a one sport athlete. The 1936 Powell Valley News article says he lettered in baseball, basketball, and football. It described him first as a basketball star, but the fuller picture is of a strong all around athlete from a small Appalachian school, the kind of player who could move from court to gridiron to diamond without losing his place.
His height helped make him stand out. The Powell Valley News gave him at six feet four inches in 1936. Later baseball sources listed him at six feet five and 205 pounds. Either way, he would have been hard to miss in a Lee County gym in the mid 1930s.
Hiwassee and the Road South
After Pennington High, Cress went to Hiwassee College in Tennessee. That step mattered. For many Appalachian students of the period, small church related and regional colleges offered a path outward without fully breaking the bond with home. Hiwassee sat close enough to the mountain South to feel familiar, but it gave Cress a larger stage.
The Powell Valley News followed his progress with pride. It told readers that the former Pennington star had scored 336 points in 20 games as a freshman and had drawn the attention of larger schools. The article also said he planned to remain another season at Hiwassee before trying a larger school.
That is exactly the kind of phrasing that makes a local sports story feel alive. Cress had not yet become a major leaguer. He was still a Lee County boy with decisions ahead of him. The newspaper did not know how far he would go, only that people were beginning to notice.
From Hiwassee, he moved into the athletic world of Louisiana State University.
LSU and a Two Sport Athlete
At LSU, Walker Cress became part of two athletic records. LSU’s men’s basketball letterwinner list includes Walker J. Cress as a guard from 1937 to 1939. LSU baseball history also places him with the Tigers in 1938 and 1939.
Baseball became the path that carried his name the farthest. When LSU later selected its All Alex Box Stadium “Foundation Era” Team, covering the years from the opening of Alex Box Stadium in 1938 through 1983, Cress was included among the pitchers. LSU described him as a member of the 1938 and 1939 teams, acknowledged him as LSU’s best pitcher of the 1930s, noted that his career was interrupted by World War II, and remembered him as a founding member of the Baton Rouge Kids Clinic.
That LSU summary is brief, but it tells a large story. Cress arrived at LSU at the very beginning of Alex Box Stadium’s long history. He played in the foundation years of a baseball program that would later become one of the most recognizable in college baseball. In that early period, before the national championships and packed modern crowds, a pitcher from Lee County, Virginia, helped shape the program’s first stadium era.
Into Professional Baseball
Cress entered professional baseball in 1939. The 1949 Cincinnati Reds media guide gives a useful year by year record of his early professional path. It lists him with Centreville in 1939, Danville in 1940, Greensboro in 1941, and Toronto in 1942. Then, for 1943, 1944, and 1945, the guide lists him as voluntarily retired.
Those missing baseball years fell during World War II. LSU’s later account says plainly that his baseball career was interrupted by the war. When Cress returned to professional baseball, he came back strongly.
In 1946, the Reds media guide records him with Lynn, where he went 19 and 3 with a 1.98 earned run average. In 1947, he pitched for New Orleans and went 15 and 5. Those were the seasons that placed him back on the road toward the major leagues.
By 1948, Walker James Cress was with the Cincinnati Reds.
Foots Cress and the Cincinnati Reds
Major League Baseball lists Walker Cress as Walker James Cress, nicknamed “Foots.” He batted and threw right handed, stood six feet five, and weighed 205 pounds. His major league debut came with Cincinnati on April 27, 1948.
Cress appeared in 30 games for the Reds in 1948, mostly as a relief pitcher, with two starts. He returned for three more games in 1949. His major league career was short, but it was real and documented. MLB credits him with 33 career games, 62 innings pitched, 33 strikeouts, and a 4.35 earned run average.
His only major league decision was a loss, which can make the statistical line look colder than the career itself. Baseball has always had a way of reducing a man to numbers, but the path behind those numbers was long. Before Cress ever stood on a major league mound, he had traveled from Lee County school athletics to Hiwassee, from Hiwassee to LSU, from LSU into the minor leagues, through the interruption of war, and back into professional baseball.
That journey is the story.
He also showed an unusual touch as a hitter for a pitcher. Baseball Almanac gives him four hits in eight major league at bats, a .500 career batting average. Small sample or not, it remains one of the more memorable lines in his record.
Baton Rouge and the Game After the Game
Cress’s baseball life did not end with his last major league appearance. LSU remembered him as a founding member of the Baton Rouge Kids Clinic, a youth baseball institution that connected former players, scouts, and baseball teachers with young athletes in Louisiana. A 1988 Louisiana Digital Media Archive record for a Baton Rouge kids baseball clinic includes interviews with Walker Cress and other baseball figures, showing that his connection to the game lasted long after his playing days.
That later life matters because it changes how his story should be read. Cress was not only a Lee County athlete who reached the majors. He also became one of those former players who carried the game forward by teaching it, encouraging it, and making it available to children.
For Appalachian history, that arc is familiar. Many mountain stories do not end where the person was born. They move outward to college towns, factories, war service, ball clubs, classrooms, churches, union halls, and city parks. What remains important is the line of connection back to the place that first formed them.
For Walker Cress, that line ran back to Lee County.
A Name Worth Recovering
Walker James “Foots” Cress died on April 21, 1996, in Baton Rouge. LSU’s remembrance places him among the important early pitchers in the history of Alex Box Stadium. MLB and Baseball Almanac preserve his major league record. The Cincinnati Reds media guide preserves the professional path that took him from small minor league clubs to Cincinnati. The Powell Valley News preserves something more local and more personal: the memory of a tall Pennington High athlete before the larger world fully knew him.
That is why Cress belongs in Appalachian history. He represents a kind of regional figure who can be missed if we only look for governors, generals, coal operators, labor leaders, or nationally famous entertainers. He was not a household name across America, but he carried Lee County into college athletics, professional baseball, and the major leagues.
The local record knew him first as a basketball star. LSU remembered him as one of its best early pitchers. Major League Baseball remembered him as Foots Cress of the Cincinnati Reds.
Lee County can remember him as all of those things at once.
Sources and Further Reading
Powell Valley News. “Basket Bll Star.” Powell Valley News, 1936. https://archive.org/stream/powell-valley-news-1936/Powell%20Valley%20News%20%281936%29_djvu.txt
Powell Valley News. “Pennington Baseball and Local Mentions of Walker Cress.” Powell Valley News, 1933. https://archive.org/stream/powell-valley-news-1933/Powell%20Valley%20News%20%281933%29_djvu.txt
Cincinnati Reds. 1949 Cincinnati Reds Media Guide. Cincinnati: Cincinnati Baseball Club, 1949. https://library.sfo2.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/publications/baseball/yearbooks/BCINRMG-1949-cincinnati-reds-media-guide.pdf
Major League Baseball. “Walker Cress Stats, Age, Position, Height, Weight, Fantasy & News.” MLB.com. Accessed June 12, 2026. https://www.mlb.com/player/walker-cress-112823
Baseball Almanac. “Walker Cress Baseball Stats.” Baseball Almanac. Accessed June 12, 2026. https://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/player.php?p=cresswa01
Baseball-Reference.com. “Walker Cress Stats, Height, Weight, Position, Rookie Status & More.” Sports Reference. Accessed June 12, 2026. https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/cresswa01.shtml
Baseball-Reference.com. “Foots Cress Minor Leagues Statistics.” Sports Reference. Accessed June 12, 2026. https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=cress-001wal
Retrosheet. “Walker Cress Player Page.” Retrosheet. Accessed June 12, 2026. https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/C/Pcresw101.htm
Retrosheet. “Pittsburgh Pirates 2, Cincinnati Reds 1, October 1, 1948.” Retrosheet. Accessed June 12, 2026. https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1948/B10010CIN1948.htm
Louisiana State University Athletics. “Foundation Era All-Alex Box Team.” LSU Sports, July 11, 2019. https://lsusports.net/news/2019/07/11/1435239-2/
Louisiana State University Athletics. “LSU Men’s Basketball All-Time Letterwinners.” LSU Sports. Accessed June 12, 2026. https://lsusports.net/mbbletterwinners/
Society for American Baseball Research. “Walker Cress.” SABR BioProject. Accessed June 12, 2026. https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/walker-cress/
Society for American Baseball Research. “Baseball Research Journal 29.” SABR, 2000. https://research.sabr.org/journals/files/SABR-Baseball_Research_Journal-29.pdf
Louisiana Digital Media Archive. “BR Kids’ Baseball Clinic.” Louisiana Digital Media Archive, 1988. https://ldma.lpb.org/digital/collection/LPA/id/4902/
StatsCrew. “1947 New Orleans Pelicans Roster.” StatsCrew. Accessed June 12, 2026. https://www.statscrew.com/minorbaseball/roster/t-np13269/y-1947
Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. “Walker James Cress.” David Attride Genealogy Database. Accessed June 12, 2026. https://acpl-cms.wise.oclc.org/digital/api/singleitem/collection/p16089coll31/id/284283/filename/284284.pdf
Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. “William Allen Cress.” David Attride Genealogy Database. Accessed June 12, 2026. https://acpl-cms.wise.oclc.org/digital/api/singleitem/collection/p16089coll31/id/284281/filename/284282.pdf
Find a Grave. “Walker James Cress.” Find a Grave Memorial. Accessed June 12, 2026. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/88719113/walker-james-cress
Author Note: Walker Cress’s record carries a few small conflicts, especially over his exact birthplace wording and one alternate birth-date listing. This article follows the stronger official baseball and genealogical trail while keeping the Lee County record at the center of the story.