Despite Life's Curves, Hearn Back on Field Helping Mets by Bill Whitehead, Special to TC Palm PORT ST
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Serving Florida's East Coast PART OF THE USA TODAY NETWORK Saturday, January 27, 2018 Despite life's curves, Hearn back on field helping Mets By Bill Whitehead, Special to TC Palm PORT ST. LUCIE – Treasure Coast native Ed Hearn As a high school graduation gift to his parents, Hearn was a member of a New York Mets club that was a part created a framed collage of his press clippings and of one of the most legendary comebacks in baseball photos from his playing days in Little League and for the history, but real life is where the former catcher has Cobras. rallied the best. One particular black-and-white photo from a 1973 visit “I’ve been to the penthouse to Dodgertown during the Los Angeles Dodgers’ spring to the outhouse and back,” training – printed along with a story in the then-Fort said Hearn, 57, at his hotel in Pierce Tribune -- held a seemingly karma-like meeting PGA Village last week between Hearn and a famous Dodgers player. following the day’s games at In it, a 12-year-old Hearn, dressed in his uniform of Fort the First Data Field training Pierce Elks National Little League powerhouse Turner complex, where the former Machine, stands next to a fellow player and between a Fort Pierce native served as pair of Dodgers – utility player Lee Lacy and first a coach in the annual Mets baseman Bill Buckner. Fantasy Camp. Hearn and Buckner would be reunited thirteen years Hearn worked on his team later in Game 6 of the World Series between Hearn’s with fellow coaches Mookie Mets and Buckner’s Red Sox, who held a 3-2 series lead Wilson and Barry Lyons and a 5-3 lead in the bottom of the tenth inning. with the camp participants, generally older men who are longtime Mets fans. Many cheered for the blue and orange way before Hearn joined the club in May of 1986. Hearn nearly broke camp with the big club, but manager Davey Johnson decided on Lyons to back up All-Star Gary Carter. However, Hearn was soon promoted, and he was strong in August when Carter went down with a thumb injury. The Mets played some of their best baseball with Hearn – a prep standout at Fort Pierce Central -- behind the plate in Carter’s absence. “I took over as No. 1 catcher for a couple of weeks. We went like 11-3. I caught 11 games and John Gibbons caught three,” said Hearn, who hit .265 with four homers in place of the late Hall of Famer. “When Gary was coming back from his thumb injury, some of the players were saying, ‘You need to take another couple of days off.’ We were on quite a roll. That 2-week period probably got me the starting job in Kansas City (in 1987).” The Mets rallied, though, scoring three times with two Hearn had the first of three kidney transplants in 1992, outs and the bases empty, the final run coming on a and the side effects of the immunosuppressant fielding error by Buckner that plated Ray Knight on the medications took him down to “a dark place.” He battled most famous routine grounder in Mets’ history. New through it before rallying and beginning the biggest York won its second World Series title two nights later in comeback of his life. an 8-5 win. In the fall of 1993 he told his life story at a Kansas City Two weeks later, Hearn was back home from a ticker- Rotary Club, and soon a motivational speaking tour tape parade and media attention, sitting on his parents’ began, with as many as 100 dates a year. sofa when the framed present caught his eye. Near the He wrote a book in 1997 – Conquering Life’s Curves – center was the Dodgertown photo. and now speaks about 25 times each year as a “I looked up and here’s (Buckner), the guy who set my freelancer. life in a whole different direction,” said Hearn. “What are “It’s been a big part of my life. When you see and hear the chances that 13 years later he and I would end up in from people how much you’ve impacted their lives from the World Series and he would allow me to have a World reading my book or speaking, it’s been very valuable for Series ring on my hand?” me,” he said. A shoulder injury derailed his career after he was traded “I take 40 pills a day, but speaking is the best medicine to Kansas City the next season. However, worse was to for me. I know it is hard for most people to understand, come after he left baseball. but I actually look forward to a speaking engagement more than I used to look forward to a Major League baseball game. You see, I now have the opportunity to help others in a very unique way. I can positively impact more lives today as a speaker and author than I could have if I had played ten years in the big leagues.” Hearn keeps that positive approach as he keeps rallying. “Today, some thirty years after life’s curves seemed to have me headed for the bench, I am still in ‘the lineup.’ And I’m going to keep swinging for the fences regardless of life’s curves,” he said. Follow Bill on Twitter: @BillWhiteheadFL Ed Hearn, CSP eSpeaker Link.