Lawrence High head baseball coach Brad Stoll and assistant Adam Green put a photograph of one player from every Lions team on what they call their “Wall of Fame.”

In 2008, Travis Sanders was that player. Shortest guy on the team, hobbling down the first-base line with everything he had after rushing himself back from a knee injury suffered during football season. Coach’s dream. Opposing pitcher’s nightmare.

“I miss him every day,” Stoll said. “I know people say that, but it’s true. There’s not a day I don’t think about him. His picture’s right above my desk.”

Sanders died Oct. 27, 2013 at the age of 23, in an accident on I-35 in Osage County. He had hit a deer that disabled his car and had walked out of the car. A motorist swerved to avoid Sanders’ car and hit him.

The morning, Stoll said, he woke up to “a half-dozen missed calls and 10-to-15 text messages. God-awful way to wake up.”

It’s a horrible memory in a sea of wonderful ones about an athlete who had too much love and respect for the games he played to play them any other way than with pedal to the metal.

On Saturday, friends of his will team up, call themselves Sluggers for Sanders and play the second-annual Sanders Vintage Baseball Game vs. the Emporia Vintage baseball team, a group of men who play wearing flannel uniforms, short-billed caps and baggy pants of baseball’s early days. Umpires will dress in the uniforms of a bygone era and the baseball will be similar to the ones used way, way, way back. First pitch is scheduled for 2 p.m. at Broken Arrow Park.

Julie Rea, mother of Travis’ LHS teammate Aaron Rea, came up with the idea.

“She just thought with Travis’ love for the game, this would be a good way to memorialize him,” said Regina Sanders, Travis’ mother.

Regina said she had a great time watching last year’s game.

“They had an old man on the Emporia team, had to be in his 80’s or 90’s and he was running around out there,” she said. “We were afraid he was going to drop dead.”

There is no admission charge, but concessions will be sold and donations to an education fund for Travis’ nephews, Houston and Myric, will be accepted.

“It’s just a way for all of us to pay tribute to his memory,” Regina Sanders said.

Asked how she and husband Richard were doing, Regina said, “We’re surviving.”

Travis made his parents proud on baseball diamonds, football fields and in general. He gave them rich memories.

“That’s very important that we have those to grasp,” Regina Sanders said.