After my dad had passed away in 1991, I decided to make sure to keep my mom busy so she would not do what a lot spouses do, and that is die not too much later. You see it all the time. I did not want to see it with my parents. Dad had died too young, and I did not want mom to die young too. Keeping her busy with ball games, music shows, car races, and playing cribbage or yahtzee. It worked for ten years. It did not hurt that my sister Pat moved to the area from Hawaii, her daughter Lori following after a stay in New York. Both of my brothers, John and Tom, made multiple visits to Florida, sometimes with their boys and sometimes not.
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| Mom with my friend Bill at a baseball field dedication |
In January of 1999, the Florida Institute of Technology was dedicating a baseball field to two people. A MLB pitcher was going to be there to throw out the first pitch and sign some autographs. This particular player had played high school ball locally and also had played first base on the team at Florida Tech. Mom and Dad had gone to his games at Eau Gallie High School. Mom said she would love to see him.
I had got my Masters degree from FIT in 1989, so I was an alumni and I was in the habit of going to basketball games and helping the rowing team from time to time. Florida Tech is a Division II school located here in Melbourne Florida.
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| The Mascot for the Florida Tech Panthers |
The MLB pitcher was none other than Tim Wakefield of the Boston Red Sox. Tim was born in Melbourne and played at FIT. In his memoir, which I have not read, he talks about a game when the coach needed a pitcher in a non-conference game. At this time, he was known for his hitting of homeruns and driving in RBIs, pitching was not his position. Tim said he threw a knuckleball in warm-up that the catcher could not handle and the coach told him “I don’t think we should use that pitch, it’s not very good.”
Wakefield eventually went on to use that knuckler to post 200 major league victories, all but 14 of those with the Boston Red Sox during a 19-year career.
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| Tim Wakefield of the Red Sox at field dedication |
The coach was Les Hall, and even as an active coach, the university was dedicating the field in his name. As an aside, Coach Hall passed away this past September at 80. I had met him a few times, usually on the golf course. He was great friends with my golfing buddy Jim Middlebrooks. At Florida Tech, he ended with 596 wins as the head coach.
The other name that was going to be on the field was Andy Seminick. He played major league baseball in the 1940s and 1950s. He was on the Phillies team, catcher for the Whiz Kids of 1950, that won the pennant and went to the World Series. He showed me his World Series ring at a basketball game once. He was an avid fan of FIT sports and helped Coach Hall with the baseball team. This dedication was in 1999 and Andy passed in 2004 at 83 years young.
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| Coach Les Hall (in uniform), Pitcher Tim Wakefield, Catcher Andy Seminick |
The Atheletic Director back then, and he is still there today, was Bill Jurgens. He gave one of the speeches on that special, sunny day at Florida Tech.
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| AD Bill Jurgens at Field Dedication |
Mom and I had gotten tee shirts, printed special for the day. Mom said I should go get Wakefield's autograph for her. I told her she should go so she can tell him she use to watch him play in High School. She said okay and went down to stand in line. After a few minutes, she returned with the shirt, a Tim Wakefield autograph, and one of the biggest smiles I havd ever seen on her face. She said he thanked her for being such a loyal fan. I was so glad I made her go, but I regret I did not catch the moment on film!
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| Tim Wakefield at the field dedication |
Back in the early 1980s, I played Stan Musial baseball for three years, managing a team the last two years. My last year I played and coached I was able to grab a starting pitcher from the Florida Tech team for the summer. Coach Hall of FIT and Coach Rosseau of BCC would recommend players to me. If I had kept coaching for a few more years, I maybe could have gotten Tim to be on my team. I was a magnet for the Eau Gallie High School players.
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| Coach Hall giving a speech |
Not only was this a field dedication in January, there was also a game against the Nova team. Nice thing about Florida is that baseball season can start very early.
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| National Anthem with Nova on third base line |
It was time for the first pitch. What could be better than to put Andy Seminick at the plate, a man who had caught for 16 years in the MLB, and was having a field dedicated to him for his great love of the game. I saw a quote by him at the time saying that usually ball fields are dedicated to dead people. How often do you get a field named for you while you are still alive?
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| Andy Seminick prepares to catch first pitch at his field dedication |
And who better to through out the first pitch but a former player on this field, Tim Wakefield. After Tim retired from MLB, he moved back to the area. Some people thought he would replace Hall as the coach but he is just spending his time raising a family. You can see the field name above the scoreboard in the next picture, just above Andy Seminick's head.
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| Tim Wakefield throws first pitch to catcher Andy Seminick (79 y.o.) |
It was quite a day and a great experience for me and my mom. We had a great time. After mom passed away, I found a lot of memorbilia from events that we had gone to together. And I found a tee shirt with an autograph from Tim Wakefield. That's a keeper!
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