The Little Drummer Boy

TOTS Senior Baseball Network

60-and-over baseball

Long before 84-year-old retired dentist Billy Heiny terrorized his patients in a dental chair, long before he joined the Tucson Old Timers (TOTS) baseball club, and long before his elementary school days back in Indiana, Billy was the little drummer boy.

"I started playing the drums when I was just five years old, says Heiny.  "And, I still do."

Heiny grew up in the Big Band Era... back in the days of such great drummers as Gene Krupa, Papa Joe Jones and Buddy Rich...back in the days when Benny Goodman, Glen Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Lionel Hampton and Woody Herman...just to name a few, filled the auditoriums and dance halls.

The music lives on even today. Somewhere along the way a fella by the name of "Elvis" stepped in and things changed in the music world. "I couldn't get into the Elvis thing," adds Heiny. "I'm still into the music from the Big Band Era. It's what I grew up with and I learned everything about music by  listening to the bands from the 1930s and 1940s."

His favorite: A fella by the name of Stan Kenton.

Kenton's bands were on the music scene from the 1930s clear through to the late 1970s. Kenton passed away in 1979 at the age of 67.

"I have all of Kenton's records," Heiny adds. "I enjoyed his arrangements, all the way back to when I was a kid."

 Billy recalls, "I got into music at a very young age. It was a family thing. We'd sit around and play our instruments. My instrument was always the drums. I didn't want to play anything else."

Billy loves his baseball and he still loves the music from the Big Band Era. Today, he continues to play his music...and he has the TOTS. He can fill his days with playing baseball three days a week at Udall Park and, on occasion, he bangs away with his drums -- playing with a local band or two,  at places like group homes and the long term care centers.

There are plenty of people around who love to sit back and listen to the sounds of drummers, Krupa, Jones and Rich... and the big band leaders like Goodman...Dorsey...Miller and Kenton.

The music lives on...and so does the TOTS.

As for baseball, Heiny joined the 60-and-over baseball club in 1997. Billy was already at the young age of 67. He put the drum sticks away for a while and concentrated on the game of baseball.

And, he's pretty good at it, too.

"I never played baseball up to that point," Heiny said. "I love it. I love playing with the TOTS."

Whoever said, "You can't march to the beat of a different drum?"

Photo: Billy Heiny. Billy is the third oldest among all the TOTS. Billy will turn 85 in August.



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