Message from Alumni Chairman
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DIAMOND LEGACY NEWSLETTER INSIDE THIS News from the Babe Ruth League Alumni Association ISSUE: VOLUME 5, ISSUE 3 MAY 2016 A Tale of Two 2 Teammates Message From Alumni Chairman West Hartford 7 There is just something roasting hot dogs waft Alumni Named about spring that warms over postgame parties. Scholar-Athletes the soul. Spring is full of Parents, relatives and Things to Ponder 8 transformations. The neighbors serve as temperatures rise to a coaches and umpires, Class Notes 9 more bearable degree. work in the concession The leaves we saw fall stand and in other Tri-Valley BRL 11 and flowers we saw wilt volunteer positions. A Foundation for are now budding into Success lush, green, picture- This is what the Babe experience full of Happenings in 13 perfect plants. Ruth League program is wonderful relationships Babe Ruth League all about—a sense of with friends and BRL Alumni 14 When spring rolls into community. mentors, and one that Supports Coastal our lives, we start to has instilled the values pick up the slack that And for anyone who of community service Blast from the 15 Past—Dan Cook winter instilled inside gave up the game at the and striving for us. No more lounging end of last season, excellence. Keeper of the 16 whether graduating Game Donates on the couch watching Game Balls television—it’s time to from the program or Joining the Alumni get outside. It’s time to retiring as a volunteer, Association keeps you in Friends We will 18 and spring is reminding Miss find our way to the local the game. As a member, Babe Ruth League you of the pain you felt you stay connected with Sincere Thanks to 20 in that very moment, the Donors ballpark. Babe Ruth League, and Babe Ruth Alumni you are able to reconnect Welcome New 20 Association is for you. Members Spring is a reminder that with former teammates, baseball and softball, players, managers, like the world, stop for We realize the beauty of coaches, commissioners no one. it all. For a period of our or other volunteers. As lives, we got to a member, you help Babe Ruth Baseball and experience something so carry on the tradition of Softball have been special and so Babe Ruth League to family traditions for meaningful, that letting make sure the program many decades. Entire go is a painful feeling we is available for the next neighborhoods gather at will never forget. generation...your kids, the ballpark on warm grandkids, family summer evenings, We realize the positive members, neighbors. where kids ride bikes, impact the Babe Ruth families cheer from the League program has had Mark Watkins stands, and the smell of on our lives. An Chairman PAGE 2 PAGE 2 Graduate Corner — Brandon Lyon & John Buck A TALE OF TWO TEAMMATES months of winter, its relatively small population and its fixation with basketball and football — both making it to the big leagues, anyway? Baseball is a game of statistics, so consider this: According to the Baseball Almanac, since professional baseball began in 1876, 38 players born in Utah, including Brandon Lyon, have played in the major leagues; and another 14 from Wyoming, where John Buck was born before moving to Utah when he was 4. That’s a grand total of 52 players from both states in 140 years — out of the nearly 20,000 ballplayers who have had, as they say, a cup of coffee at the game’s highest level. Now consider that of those raised on Utah baseball, only one, Bruce Hurst of St. George, at 15 years, had a longer career than Lyon, who played Back before they'd gone and done it, before 12 seasons, and Buck, who played 11. boyhood friends Brandon Lyon and John Buck (graduates of the Taylorsville, Utah Babe Ruth You could also add a fourth name to the group: League) pulled off their version of hitting the Vance Law, who was born in Idaho but played Powerball numbers by playing more than a decade high school baseball for Provo High before in the major leagues, including one Field of enjoying an 11-year career in the majors. Dreams season as battery mates for the New York Mets, making $26 million in the process, each; back But that’s it. Only Hurst and Law — one raised in before all that, John Buck was sitting in a little the year-round baseball climate of Utah’s Dixie and room off to the side of the main office at the other the son of Major League legend Vern Taylorsville High School and had this exchange Law— went as far and stayed as long as the two with Joyce Jones, the guidance counselor. guys who grew up without glossy baseball pedigrees in Taylorsville, where they had to deal Ms. Jones: "So tell me about your career goals." with, among other things, the inversion. John: "I'm going to play professional baseball." So how did they do it? What’s their secret? What Ms. Jones: "That's nice, but if not baseball, then do they tell Utah kids, and their parents, who also what?" might want to attempt the impossible? John: "Professional football." Ms. Jones: "Ok. Those are short careers. What During a recent baseball tournament in southern about after?" Utah, where they were watching their boys play, the two recent retirees — Lyon is 36, Buck is 35 — John: "I don't know. Be a dad; raise my kids. took a stab at an answer. Have you seen what they make?" Just what are the odds of two kids who grew up (continued on next page) playing baseball together in Utah — with its six PAGE 3 PAGE 3 Graduate Corner — Brandon Lyon & John Buck They talked about the importance of supportive 1997.) parents, of working hard, of dreaming big, of never saying die — the usual motivational catchphrases. Steve Cramblitt, who coached Taylorsville to the Then, eventually, both got around to the most 1996 and 1998 state titles, along with five others, important ingredient of all: Taylorsville. remembers Lyon’s mental toughness — “Loosy- goosy off the field; tough, tough, tough on the Growing up in the landlocked city in the middle of field,” and Buck’s uncommon drive to excel — the Salt Lake Valley in the ‘80s and ‘90s was like “John had to work at it a little harder and he did; enrolling in a baseball academy and still getting to he had a tremendous work ethic.” live at home. Taylorsville took its baseball seriously, but not too seriously. Lyon and Buck But it was never just those two and everybody else. were able to play all the other sports growing up— They weren’t the show. The team was. ski racing, snowboarding, skateboarding, BMX riding, hockey, football, even gymnastics (Buck “Almost the whole team went on to play in credits it for improving his catching). But they also college,” says Buck. “It was never like, ‘Hey, it’s played baseball. A lot of baseball. Taylorsville was going to be me and you, Boo.’” ahead of its time in organizing top-level youth baseball leagues, led by Edo Rottini and others Adds Lyon, “Our team was our frame of reference. who built first-class facilities, taught the kids to Growing up in Utah, we didn’t know anybody in play the right way, and made sure they got plenty the big leagues, there were no (MLB) teams close of opportunities for competition. by. We’d play whiffle ball and say, ‘This is the World Series,’ and that’s about it.” “Our youth league was like the super leagues now,” says Buck. “We had two-a-days when we Lyon was drafted by the Mets out of high school in were 11 years old.” 1997, but not until the 37th round, the 1,110th player chosen, leading him to decide to play “Taylorsville had such a great history of winning,” baseball at Dixie State instead of turning pro. says Lyon. “I watched my older brother (Shane) and his friends and we looked up to those guys. In 1998, Buck's senior season of high school, the All we wanted to do was be them.” Houston Astros drafted the catcher, already 6-foot- 3 and nearing his big-league playing weight of 225 Lyon, nicknamed "Boo" by his friends, is 11 months pounds, in the seventh round, the 212th player older than Buck, but because their birthdays fall on chosen. He turned pro right after he graduated, all either side of the July 31 cutoff, they played on the of 17 years old, and joined the rookie league Gulf same age-group teams from the time they were 8 League Astros in Kissimmee, Florida. years old through high school. Over the years the roster hardly changed, breeding a squad that won, While Buck started clawing his way through the in addition to countless state trophies, Babe Ruth bush leagues, Lyon was away at college separating League national championship as 13-year-olds. his shoulder; the right one — his throwing arm. By the time this group got to Taylorsville High, where the school had already won six state baseball championships in 10 years, the only surprise was that the Warriors added only two (continued on next page) more titles in the Lyon/Buck era instead of three. (Jordan High knocked them out of the playoffs in PAGE 4 PAGE 4 Graduate Corner — Brandon Lyon & John Buck He hurt the shoulder snowboarding during He peaked at Toronto in 2010 when he hit .281 Christmas break midway through his freshman with 20 home runs and a slugging percentage year.