MOULTRIE — When outstanding youth baseball coaches and twin brothers Harry and Larry Spires were inducted into the Colquitt County Sports Hall of Fame in 2009, they received this tribute from one of their players who went on to perform in the major leagues:

“Larry and Harry, I have had many managers, the likes of Tommy Lasorda, Lou Piniella, Tom Treblehorn and Dick Williams, just to name a few,” wrote Dennis Powell, who went from Norman Park to pitch for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Seattle Mariners and Milwaukee Brewers.

“However, none of these major league managers made a more lasting impression on my life than you.”

Larry Spires passed away on August 29, 2018.

Harry died  on July 12.

The brothers combined to coach youth baseball in Colquitt County for more than 50 years.

Jimmy Gisi, who played baseball for the Spires brothers as a youngster and later served as the executive director of the Georgia Recreation and Park Association, estimated the two devoted more than 10,000 hours to youth baseball players.

Gisi called it “a great honor to play for these two men.”

During their careers, the two produced 21 league championship teams, 18 District champions and six state champions.

The brothers grew up on a farm in Norman Park, where Larry first started coaching youth baseball in 1970.

Several years later, Harry returned to Colquitt County from Jacksonville, Fla., were he had lived and worked for several years and had begun coaching.

The two once squared off in a Moultrie Recreation Department championship game and soon began coaching together.

The Spires brothers supervised the building of the baseball fields in Norman Park and helped with their upkeep.

The GRPA honored the brothers as its District III Volunteers of the Year in 2007.

In addition to Powell, who himself was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2001, among the other outstanding Colquitt County baseball players who learned their fundamentals from the Spires brothers are Muzzy Jackson, Will Stuckey, Hayden Gliemmo and Ty Megahee.