At Tucson Udall Park
The Legends of the Game
In the baseball fiction yarn, The Natural, there are many famous lines. A diehard baseball fan can recall all of them. One that has always stuck with me: Robert Duvall, who played the beat reporter Max, said to Roy Hobbs: "They come and they go, Hobbs. They come and they go."
Max goes on to say that he was there to protect the game. Of course, in the flick, Max was not always on the up and up and had a strange way of protecting America's Favorite Pastime.
The Natural hit the Silver Screen in 1984 -- 38 years ago!
Max was a broken down, old sportswriter. Here in 2022, I consider myself the same, but I'm protecting the game in my own little way as I document a 60-and-over amateur baseball team, the Tucson Old Timers -- an organization that has been around since 1968.
That's sixteen years before Robert Redford shined as Roy Hobbs in The Natural.
The TOTS have a bigger cast than The Natural -- close to 300 members since the first TOTS' team was formed. Talk about characters, there was a TOT who had his funeral planned out long before he took his last swing with the club. His name was Bob Wolken. Born in 1919, Wolken passed away in the winter of 1997. He made sure his daughter, Marie, paid a full year of dues, despite the fact he was disabled. Bob, who played 15 years with the TOTS, was laid to rest in his pinstripe uniform and jacket. The music selected for the organist was "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" and it was no coincidence that his funeral was held on a non-game day (not Monday, Wednesday or Friday).
I've been with the club since 2008, although I did take a leave of absence for four months at the end of 2021, and I have had the honor of meeting, and playing alongside, my share of TOTS' legends -- including Iron Man Jerry Smarik, Billy Heiny, Clarence Fieber, Brad Tolson and Floyd Lance.
We lost Smarik in 2020 and Fieber in 2011. Heiny, Tolson and Lance no longer take their swings at Udall Park. Heiny is 92, Tolson turns 93 on June 12, 2022 and Lance, the oldest player to ever take the field for the TOTS, turns 97 on September 6, 2022.
The Legends above have now passed the torch to a new generation of TOTS.
Even the 60-year-olds from a decade ago find themselves pushing 70, 75, and in some cases 80!
Bob Daliege, who joined the club in 2010, turns 74 next month, John Mathews, who joined the organization in 2016, turned 66 last month, Pete Maldonado, who also joined the club in 2016, recently celebrated his 70th birthday, Pistol Pete Peters, a TOT since 2011, is now a middle-aged TOT at 73, and yours truly becomes the oldest regular and turns 77 in a few weeks.
But there is plenty of room at the Inn as the TOTS' roster has expanding with an influx of new talent led by Mike Dawson, Reed Palmer, Rick Bitzer, Bobby Long and mixed in with some TOTS' veterans like Tim Tolson, Jesse Ochoa, Joe Opocensky, Mike Steele, Dennis Crowley, Ken Nebesny, Chuck Sabalos, Rob Morse, Ray Garcia, Tim Boyd, Bill Mishler, Ernesto Escala, Ron Ryan and Brack Whitaker. The new 60-somethings include John Cooke, Gary Cuttler, Mark Rupert, Sam Dean, John Jarboe and Phil Ahern.
Yes, like Max said in The Natural, they come and they go.
There is no need for me to protect the game. It's already protected by the men who have donned a TOTS' uniform and will do so in the future.
Note: And a special "shout out" to scorekeeper Mal Zwolinski (member since 2006) and umpires Jerry Hamelin (member since 2002), Robert Royer (member since 2004) and Denny Leonard (member since 1992).
