60-and-over baseball
Little Joe Aparicio grew up in Santa Paula, California, nestled among the many orchards in the fertile Santa Clara River Valley.
Joe was born on January 11, 1934, so he is just a few weeks away from his 87th birthday. The 5- foot-1 inch right fielder on the 60-and-over Tucson Old Timers is the oldest player to take the field for the amateur baseball organization in 2020.
In fact, Little Joe shows up weekly and gets his cuts in. Heading into December, Joe had stepped to the plate 181 times in 2020. However, he did miss March, April, and May due to the Covid-19 scare and decided to play it safe. As a result, only two other players over 80 -- Bobby Stofft, 81, and Denny Leonard, 83, have logged in at-bats in an official game at Udall Park this season. Most players range in age from their early 60s to their mid-70s.
Of course, Little Joe wasn't always a baseball player. In fact, he spent over 30 years with IBM as a computer tech. "I could fix things," Aparicio said. "If something needed to be fixed, they'd send for Aparicio, the repairman."
Aparicio also spent five years in the Air Force in Germany and was undoubtedly a fix-it man in the service. Little Joe was one of those guys who could take something apart, ascertain the problem, solve the problem, and put the apparatus back together.
Little Joe joined the TOTS in 1998 and, on January 1, 2020, will begin his 23rd season with the club. Joe no longer hits for an average, but he wasn't too shabby in his early years with the TOTS. In fact, he passed the 1,000-hit club in the spring of this year.
So, over the last two decades, Joe figured out how to fine-tune his swing...fix it, if you will, good enough to become a .300 hitter with the organization, say around the year 2001 when he was a young 67-year-old.
The ability and the patients to fix stuff started way back in Santa Paula when he ventured off, 30 miles away, to the town of Santa Clarita to begin a 10-year career as a watchmaker.
"It's funny. I remember this guy brought in his watch to be fixed," recalls Aparicio. "It took me a while to get the watch fixed. I couldn't find the part anywhere. So, I made the part myself and completed the job."
Aparicio, who spent around six months learning the basics of watchmaking, remembers when the man returned to pick up his now workable watch. The man said. "What's the difference between a watch repairman and a watchmaker?"
So Little Joe explains to the fellow how he came about getting the watch to work again. The man then said. "You mean you had to make the part to make it work?"
"Yes, I did," Joe said to the man. "That's the difference between a watch repairman and a watchmaker."
So, from an early age, Little Joe Aparicio has been dealing with time one way or another.
Now the time has flown by for Little Joe, but when asked how much longer he would continue to play baseball.
Joe said. "I'll keep on playing. I love it. There's plenty of time."
After all these years of playing with the TOTS, Little Joe Aparicio can still get the bat on the ball.
The TOTS manager Mike Dawson adds: "Even at his age, Joe continues to step to the plate and makes contact with the ball."
How many more at-bats does Little Joe have with the TOTS?
Only time will tell.
Photos: 1) A profile of Little Joe, the oldest player to play for the TOTS this season. 2) Joe figures the pitch is a little high and inside.
No comments:
Post a Comment