Well, baseball season is underway and I love baseball. Always have. I love watching it on TV, love watching it in person, loved broadcasting it, still love listening to it on the radio. I love summer league programs, too, and am very supportive of them. Fact is, I coached for a few years.
I started in the late 60s and went to about the mid 70s or so. We had some great teams and coaches and got to compete against some good ones as well. I probably should mention a lot of players I coached but if I tried, I’d leave a whole bunch out.
Some opposing coaches turned out to be great friends of mine like Don Walker, Bill Blanchard, Jim Hampton, etc. I remember the old Camp Bowie ballparks that we played in and have special memories of that place.
My wife and I, as I was on the Board of Directors of the baseball association, got deeply involved the year after I stopped coaching. Deeper than I wanted because they couldn’t find anyone to run the concession stand that season. We had no experience at doing anything like that, but we couldn’t get anyone else to volunteer, so we ran the concession stand. That was an experience.
After that year, I actually ended up coaching one more season in 1981. Some coaches bailed out on a team and the board had to find someone to coach them. I was asked and so we took those kids and ended up having a great and memorable time.
One of the guys who played that season got kind of famous later on in life. He was Jimmy Morris and Jimmy later on in life became “The Rookie.” I got to coach Jimmy that one year and he was a talent. You knew that he had the potential to be something special. He had a terrific arm and could throw it as hard as anyone I have ever been around.
My favorite memory of Jimmy was actually not with him on the mound, it was with him in center field. The old ballpark in Camp Bowie, the Senior Park, which we played in, was separated only by the concession stand from the softball park which was right behind it. They got a base hit to center field and Jimmy scooped it on the run and fired it like a rocket. It simply disappeared from view and ended up hitting the softball outfield fence in the park behind us.
He came into the dugout when the inning ended and I said, “Jimmy, what were you throwing at?” He looked at me and said, “Home plate!” I said, “That’s close enough for me.”
Maybe the best player I ever managed against was a youngster named Jerry Don Gleaton. At 14, he had a strong body and he could flat out throw the baseball. He was overpowering on the mound, but what a lot of people didn’t realize back then was how good he was at the plate. He was one of the best hitters at that age that I had ever seen. He proved it to me in one unforgettable game.
In the top half of the first inning he throws nine, maybe 10 pitches, and strikes out three batters. His team comes to bat and they have Jerry Don hitting leadoff. On the first pitch of the ballgame he launches it out of the park! Home run! Our pitcher gets rattled and can’t get anyone out. Jerry Don came up again in the first, this time with the bases loaded, and he crushes another one! It’s 10-0 and there’s still nobody out.
Needless to say, we lost the game, but it is still one of my greatest memories, not because we lost, but because I got to see a kid hit two home runs and pick up 5 RBIs in the first inning of the first game of the season.
By the way, Jimmy Morris and Jerry Don Gleaton had something else in common beside being outstanding left-handed pitchers and great hitters. They also became All-State punters for the Brownwood Lions.
Until next time, so long everybody.
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‘Out of the Box’ with Dallas Huston is published each Monday morning at BrownwoodNews.com. Dallas was the radio voice of the Brownwood Lions and Howard Payne Yellow Jackets for more than 55 years. He currently is Pastor of Center City Baptist Church and hosts a Men’s Bible Study in Brownwood on Monday evenings. Your comments are welcome at [email protected].