Hunker Down With Kes: There Are Teachers, Then There Is…

Chick King was the best baseball coach I ever played for. He spent 11 years in professional baseball, at times with the Detroit Tigers, Chicago Cubs, and St. Louis Cardinals.

I was barely sixteen when I met him. And I played the next three years of American Legion Baseball under his tutelage. We’d practice one Saturday in late May each summer and play 50 plus games in the next two months.

I asked him once why only one workout, and then so many games? He said, “You don’t get many practice days in life.”

That might not be the greatest thing he ever said to me, but I tell you, it has rolled around in my head ten thousand times over the years.

Chick (the first time I met him and called him Mr. King, he looked down at me, paused to read my soul, and said, “It’s Chick, son, everybody calls me Chick.”) never missed an opportunity to teach you something.

Baseball was the main thing on the menu…I thought. Until I lived through those summers. And believe me, Chick was all baseball. But he was a teacher first and foremost. In every sense of that word!

“Men,” he was addressing the team in the dugout during a rain delay, “nobody is going to give you anything in life. You’ve got to earn it. Don’t think your mom and dad will care for you forever. That’s not fair to them. Or you! Get your eyes open. And take your place in this world.”

I’m sitting there thinking most managers would be looking up at the sky figuring if we could finish this game. Or in Chick’s case, you’d think he’d be telling us about a hit he got off of Whitey Ford. He didn’t live in the past.

He’d stop by our house. I hoped to give me some sound baseball instruction. “Kes, have you thought about what you are going to do with your life? How you’re going to make a living? Money is not an all in all, but it sure helps to have enough to live comfortably. You need a plan. I’m not going to let you just drift along….”

Good golly Miss Molly, I’m sixteen years old. No! I ain’t given a cat’s whisper to what I’m doing next week, much less for the rest of my life!

Chick took me to that good restaurant down at Paris Landing, “Kes, you’ve got so much potential.” I straightened up. Was he telling me I was a good baseball player? “God has given you a good mind. You understand actions and consequences. You have got to get a good education. Learning is the key. Get yourself prepared! Don’t you dare let life slip upon you.”

We were at a truck stop in Jackson, eating lunch. Chick traveled in his business and he would sometimes pick me up and I’d ride along, “Kes, there are evil people in this world. You’ve got to be able to spot them. They will tell you anything, try to sell you anything, make you believe upside down is right side up, and take all you’ve got if you are not paying attention.”

He never gave up. He never let a learning moment pass. “There are also wonderful, God fearing, sensible people around you. They love life, and they will love you. You find them.” He paused and leaned over the table like he was about to deliver an edict from on high, “You BE one of THEM!”

Chick and I were the only two left in the dugout after a particularly tough loss. I thought he was going to console me, “Kes, there is a girl here in town I think you ought to date.”

What!

“She is very pretty. But, more importantly, she is prettier on the inside than she is on the outside. And her family loves the Lord. You need to look at the parents when you are considering dating. She would be just right for you.”

I left shaking my head in disbelief. But I ended up “going steady” with her for the next three years.

Chick had a farm. He paid me to haul hay for him when I really needed the money. Later in life, after I had gotten out on my own, I bought a few black angus cows and went into business with him. He never stopped giving me advice. He never stopped cheering me on. He never stopped believing in me.

He musta bought me a hundred meals. He gave me his undivided attention. He didn’t have to teach me the importance of serving others. He lived it in front of me.

I tried to thank him numerous times; he’d interrupt with another life lesson.

When folks ask who’s the man in the featured picture in the baseball locker room in our house today, a million thoughts flood my soul. You could not sum up what he’s meant to me in a month of Sundays.

So, I quietly say, “He’s just a guy I used to know.” But inside I’m thinking, “that I modeled my life on.”

Respectfully,

Kes

kesley45@aol.com