Russ was featured in Bluegrass Magazine. Below is a portion of a page from the article.
His performance whet the appetites of some major league clubs as the Pittsburgh Pirates, New York Yankees, and St. Louis Cardinals came calling with an eagerness that almost broke the door down. In fact, on the night of Petty’s high school graduation, Pirates’ scout Shaky Kane was sitting in his house with an offer comparable to the amount of money that Mickey Mantle signed for. Yet it was Tennessee Tech that made an offer that Petty couldn’t refuse. TTU reportedly gave the promising pitcher the first baseball scholarship offer in school history and thus a Golden Eagle was born.
Before his Tech tenure began, Petty received yet another offer, this time from an unlikely source. The proclaimed “Father of Bluegrass,” Bill Monroe, reached out to Petty to play on his summer league baseball team, formally known as the “Bluegrass All-Stars.” The team centered around two concepts that are as about as American as you can get…bluegrass and baseball. Petty and the rest of his teammates, most of them much older than the recent high school graduate — some who even played professionally — traveled with a bluegrass band to put on shows that featured a ball game and continued on next page
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