He played later in the summer of 1944 for the Marion (Ohio) Diggers, another Class D team affiliated with the Cubs. He signed a contract with Marion in mid-July. He went 9-for-44 at the plate. The Diggers were pretty awful and had a 50-80 record. They did have a nice ball park. Lights were installed about the same time Sparger arrived.

When the school year started, Sparger was back at Spencer High.

Spencer did indeed make a football comeback in the fall of 1944, although it got a very late start (mid-October) and only a handful of games were scheduled. Two of those games were played just four days apart. E.R. Radke coached everything for Spencer. The Post cheerfully reported that “Radke pulled the train whistle for the first time in three years.”

Sparger might have turned in a sensational football season, but ankle and leg injuries caused problems. When he was healthy, his passes were Spencer’s primary weapon.

Spencer’s return to the gridiron — only two players had any organized football experience to speak of — started with a respectable 7-0 loss to Landis. Leonard Cross threw a touchdown pass to future Clemson baseball coach Bill Wilhelm to decide that one.

The China Grove game didn’t go nearly as well for Spencer. That was a 62-7 setback, with a long TD pass by Sparger providing the only good news for the Railroaders.

Sparger also tossed a 60-yard touchdown pass against Monroe, but injuries sidelined him for the game against James Gray High of Winston-Salem. The Railroaders lost 79-0 without him.

Sparger proved to be a terror for most of the 1945 basketball season.

Games were very low-scoring, so Sparger’s 13-point outing in a 39-17 romp over Woodleaf was considered quite an offensive outburst. Sparger’s strong suit was defense, and he held China Grove star Tommy Cooper to a single point as Spencer edged China Grove 20-18 to take over first place in the league. That was in late January. The Post’s Carl Spencer reported that Sparger was “one of the finest guards ever to trod the hardwood.”

In February, however, Sparger was ruled ineligible. His status as a minor league baseball player was reported to authorities by a rival school. When his pro contracts were entered as evidence, a committee of principals ruled that Spencer had to forfeit its roundball victories.

Sparger enlisted in the U.S. Navy not long after that. In the final months of World War II, he served in the “Seabees” — CBs is short for Construction Battalions. The Seabees built bases, airstrips, roads and bridges.

After the war, Sparger was stationed in California and kept in baseball shape by playing for high-powered service teams.

In 1947, he officially became a graduate of Spencer High.

In 1948, he was back on the baseball field at Newman Park, playing for the Salisbury Pirates in the Class D North Carolina State League.

He produced stellar games that season as a 21-year-old, his best days in pro ball. The stars of the team were Lefty Lisk and Hammerin’ Hal Harrigan. A switch hitter, Sparger batted fifth in the lineup, behind Lisk and Harrigan, and played shortstop every night. He batted .286 and was considered one of the league’s top glove men.

There was an interesting series with the Albemarle Rockets. On July 9, Joe Ferebee, who was a high school coach in Salisbury, homered and also pitched effectively to lead the Rockets to win against Salisbury. On July 10, Sparger came through with the game-winning hit in the bottom of the ninth as Salisbury rallied to beat the Rockets, 9-8.

Sparger had many three-hit games that summer. He had a four-hit game against Statesville in August.

A shoulder injury set him back some, and Sparger wasn’t as effective as a hitter in 1949. He played 23 games that season for the Uniontown (Pa.) Coal Barons in the Class C Middle Atlantic League. One of Sparger’s teammates with Uniontown was a 19-year-old pitcher named Chuck Churn. A decade later, Churn would become an unlikely hero for the Los Angeles Dodgers during the 1959 National League pennant race. Churn would pitch in the World Series  and would later manage the Salisbury Astros at Newman Park.

Sparger would wrap up the 1949 season with 51 games with the Salisbury Pirates. He hit .233 as a shortstop and third baseman.

Sparger got married to Margaret “Toots” McLamb not long after that season, on Sept. 17, 1949. That union would last for 67 years. She died on May 30, 2017.

There was a story published in the Post in late January, 1950, indicating that “Dutch” Sparger was running a service station in Spencer and playing basketball in a local league, but he would soon be heading out to spring training with the Waco (Texas) Pirates of the Class B Big State League.

But that’s where the professional baseball journey ended for him. There’s no record of him playing for Waco. It might have been the shoulder. It might have been knowing he wasn’t going to make the majors and it was time to get a job closer to home.

He toiled for a while with Southern Railway, but most of his working years were spent at Duke Power’s Buck Steam Plant. He was a control operator. He went to work there in 1951 and retired in 1983.

In 1955, Sparger was elected as the president of the Spencer Athletic Association.

He became, in retirement, a collector of many things — bottles, radios, advertising signs, newspapers.

Sparger’s sons, Kelly and Phip, played for North Rowan High and for Rowan County American Legion. Kelly, the former principal at East Rowan High, also played at N.C. State. Both became coaches and gave their time and hearts to baseball. Phip devoted countless hours maintaining the historic ballpark in Spencer.

Jason Sparger, a grandson of Emil Sparger, starred for North Rowan before going on to play at Lenoir-Rhyne.

In the news recently was Sarah Margaret Dyer, captain of East Rowan’s tennis team and one of this year’s All-County Scholars. She is one of Emil Sparger’s nine great-grandchildren.