Major doings at a not-even 'minor' event

 

I went to a reunion of a local baseball team yesterday. 

This was as local as a local team can get. It wasn't minor league ball, nor even semipro ball -- nobody was getting paid, I don't think -- it was just guys in college or just out of school playing on a team because they wanted to keep playing.

They did that for three years, in the early 1970s, and then stopped. And they didn't reunite until yesterday, more than 50 years later.

One of the players on those teams was Dave Trembley, who you may remember as the Baltimore Orioles' manager from 2007-10. He's a local guy. I've written about him in my Brush With Greatness series and a couple other times -- but that was awhile ago.

He's retired now from major league ball, I believe. The organizers of the reunion started out wanting to recognize only Trembley for all he's done -- stuff like that doesn't happen regularly around here -- but he didn't want to be the center of attention. Only until it became a reunion of the whole team would he agree to fly up.

I've spoken to Trembley four or five times, always over the phone. I called him on the day he was announced as the Orioles' manager. The Orioles were flying out to San Diego that same day and when Trembley arrived there and checked his phone, there were over 140 messages of congratulations. He returned every one (he told me last night that Jim Leyland taught him to do that -- "return every card," Leyland said.) I think I talked to him that night at 12:30 in the morning.

So yesterday was the first time I saw Trembley in person. I'm used to introducing myself to people cold. It's not in my personality but it's part of the job. I knew I had to talk to Trembley after the phone conversations we had, although I didn't expect him to remember me, our last talk was probably more than a dozen years ago.

But I walked up to him and told him who I was and he immediately laughed and shouted "Greg!" and gave me a big bear hug like I was a long-lost relative. Then he recounted "all those late night conversations," although I remember just the one. We chit-chatted for a few minutes while people were trying to get him to go to the next event in the reunion.

This was the next event, playing catch out in the parking lot. That's Dave on the right. He's got to be in his early 70s. Everyone was that age yesterday, joking about health insurance. But Trembley doesn't look it.

I was impressed all over again with him, he obviously remembered my articles (maybe it was talking to his mom during the first article that made an impression). But that's the kind of guy he is, he just loves life and people.

I already own most of Trembley's Orioles cards and have an autographed card of him. I admit after I got home I started looking to add some of his minor league cards.

Speaking of cards, there was another kind of cool moment last night.

I noticed one of the former players, a quiet gentlemen, had a small stack of baseball cards with him. I noticed that they were all Royals cards, mostly from the early 1970s -- which corresponds to the time the local team was playing. That local team was also named the Royals and had uniforms that looked like the K.C. Royals uniforms of the time.

As a collector, I had to mention that I was a collector, too, in hopes we could talk about cards a little. He said that he had a very big collection, almost dismissively, like it was a bit of a burden. He fanned out the cards and said, "you want a card, which one do you want?" I thought this was a rhetorical question and I pointed to the 1973 Topps Freddie Patek card. "That's a great one," I said.

"Here," he said, and gave it to me.

 

Apparently he was doing this all night. Later at dinner someone pulled a Royals card out of his pocket that the guy gave him and then me and a couple of other people proceeded to pull out the card they got. I don't know if the man is trying to downsize or if this was just his way of honoring the old local team. But had I known I was getting a card, I might've selected the 1971 Royals team card that I saw at the top of the stack that originally drew my eye. That's a high-number card -- although I already have all those early '70s cards.

 

I thought later, "I want to be him when I'm that old."

 

So it was an interesting night.

 

I don't do well in large events where I don't know very many people, so these little moments sustained me through the night. In between there were long gaps of awkwardness in which I tried to find my opportunity to escape. Eventually, during about the third or fourth round of picture-taking of the whole group, I found it.

 

Yeah, I'm no Dave Trembley. But that's being a writer. I write a lot better than I talk.