The Sheboygan Athletic Club will hold its annual awards banquet Jan. 8 at the Elks Lodge.

The dinner is open to the public, but reservations should be made no later than Saturday by sending an email to: info@sheboyganbaseball.org.

The club will honor Sheboygan A’s players, fans, and SAC volunteers who helped make the 2021 season a success.

The cost is $25.

Social hour begins at 5 p.m.; dinner is at 6, and the awards program follows.

Grams, Neese named  to A’s Hall of Fame

Tom Grams and Ken Neese are the latest members of the Sheboygan A’s Hall of Fame.

The two, voted in by a committee consisting of current hall of fame members, will be formally inducted at an A’s game still to be determined.

Grams joined the A’s in 1969. Like others in his age group, he was denied the opportunity to play high school baseball, so upon joining the A’s, his only experience other than youth leagues was fastpitch softball while serving in the Air Force.

But he worked at the game and despite a slow start finished a nine-year career with a .278 batting average and turned into one of the A’s better first basemen after starting out as an outfielder.

Grams and his wife, Pat, reside in Sheboygan.

Unlike Grams, Neese had the opportunity to play in high school and helped South and the Legion team to championships in his senior season in 1986.

The third baseman, who played at UW-Parkside, finished with a .301 career average. He also took the mound in emergencies, including last summer at the age of 53 (he threw a scoreless inning).

Neese and his wife Joan reside in the Kiel-Elkhart Lake area.

Their son, Jacob, currently is an infielder with the A’s, mostly playing third base just as his father did.