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Home , Al Leiter, Brian Bass, Brian Fisher (baseball), Carl Erskine, Craig Skok, Dave Winfield

WINTER 2016/2017

AN EVENING OF HONOR, CELEBRATION AND CHARITY

A PUBLICATION OF THE MAJOR LEAGUE PLAYERS ALUMNI ASSOCIATION BASEBALL ALUMNI NEWS

www.baseballalumni.com E-mail: [email protected] Telephone: 1-800-336-5272 TABLE OF CONTENTS Looking for a tax free deduction? The MLBPAA is designated as a 501(c)(3) non- profit organization. Under the IRS code, your D.C. CLINIC...... 3 contributions, other than dues, are fully tax deductible. Contributions can be made in the WHERE ARE THEY NOW, GENE LOCKLEAR ...... 4-5 form of cash, securities, or real estate. LFY DINNER WRAP UP...... 6-7 Check with your accountant or tax advisor regarding which is best for you. All checks should be made payable to the MLBPAA and sent to: 1631 Mesa Avenue, Suite D Springs, CO 80906. MLBPAA Board of Directors Jim Hannan – Chairman Fred Valentine – Vice Chairman Sandy Alderson, John Doherty, Denny Doyle, Brian Fisher, Joseph Garagiola, Jr., Doug Glanville, Jim “Mudcat” Grant, Rich Hand, Mike Myers, , Jim Sadowski, Jose Valdivielso MLBPAA Officers President Vice Presidents , , Carl Erskine, , , , DONATE NOW Fred Valentine – Secretary/Treasurer www.baseballalumni.mlbpaa.com/Donate Brian Fisher – Assistant Secretary David Mindell – General Counsel Sam Moore ­– Legal Counsel Emeritus We are raising the bar in 2017 to expand our FREE international youth MLAM Board of Directors baseball clinic series! Your donation will help us reach our goals! Jim Poole - Chairman Jerry Moses - Chairman Emeritus In 2016, our Legends for Youth Clinic Series reached more than 15,000 children in cities Bill Bray, Orestes Destrade, John Doherty, across the , Canada, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Germany and Evan Kaplan, , Brian McRae, Ethan Italy. In 2017, we are planning to add even more clinics! While our clinics are free for the Orlinsky, Andy Parton, kids, they aren’t free for us. Brooks Robinson, Ed Weber Your donation will help us to put children around the world in front of their big league MLAM Officers heroes! We greatly appreciate your support as we work to expand our Legends for Youth – President Clinic Series in 2017. Fergie Jenkins – Vice President – Vice President David Mindell – Secretary/Treasurer, General Counsel MLAS Board of Directors Craig Skok – Chairman Steve Rogers – Secretary/Treasurer Chris Archer, , Dexter Fowler, LaTroy Hawkins, , Jason Phillips,

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FORMER MLB STARS TEACH FUNDAMENTALS AND LOVE OF GAME AT NORTHEAST CLINIC By Ben Standig / Special to MLB.com matter of getting the message out to the in Northern Virginia, and the other community, getting some more local MLB alumni frequently attend clinics , D.C. — Kids don’t advocates involved. ... It can definitely be throughout the greater metro area. know what they don’t know. In the a model for the program.” The Nationals Academy hosts events context of baseball, former Major League Hannan played for the Washington throughout the year. standout Al Bumbry views his mission as Senators from 1962-70 before splitting “Working with the kids is nothing new. helping to fill in the gaps. his final season between Detroit and Being at a facility like this, oh my god, we The 1973 Rookie of the Milwaukee in ‘71. would love to have something like this. Year was among the former Major League “I played in this town for nine years, and For a youth facility, this is one of the best Baseball players serving as instructors at then they didn’t have a team for 30 years,” I’ve seen,” he said. the Youth Baseball said the former , who remained in When the kids were with Bumbry, a Academy in the Southeast section of the area after his playing career. “To see former centerfielder, Washington, D.C. on Saturday, October this facility built by [Nationals ownership] the focus was on catching fly balls. 8. More than 75 kids worked on different and is great Known for his speed and defensive aspects of the game. because it’s sorely needed.” prowess during his 14-year playing career, Ken Dixon, Stephen Lombardozzi, Brian As Hannan sees it, that need extends the 69-year-old was both feisty and Bass, Jim Hannan and Rick Krivda were beyond the field. playful when explaining glove placement among the other former players helping and the art of running toward a ball to “The main thing we have is a life session the next generation of ball players. to teach fundamentals and love for the at one of our stations where we tell them DONATE NOW game at the spacious and impressive to respect authority, go to school, be good “It’s fun because I will ask them, ‘How facility that opened its doors in 2014. kids, stay away from drugs, be occupied many of you don’t know how to catch “Field of Dreams said, ‘If you build it, with good things. That’s the primary a ball?’ Nobody raises their hand,” said they will come,’ said Dixon with a nod mission,” Hannan said. “The other part of Bumbry, a member of Baltimore’s 1983 toward the iconic baseball movie and it is have fun and play ball. ... You’re also champions. “Then I toss a part of the facility’s mission of growing developing the fans, too.” ball, and 90 percent of them miss it. So the game in the inner city. “So it’s just a I know there is a need for what I give Dixon, who runs a baseball youth group them, and I enjoy doing that.”

Former pitcher Brian Bass, a former pitcher for the Baltimore Former pitcher Jerry Cram, who is currently Daryl Smith. Orioles, Twins and . the pitching for the Giants affiliate.

A PUBLICATION OF THE MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL PLAYERS ALUMNI ASSOCIATION 3 BASEBALLGENE ALUMNILOCKLEAR (1973-1977)NEWS

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

FROM DIRT TO CANVAS patterns used in his painting style, expressing some aspect of his life. By Max Carter, MLBPAA Intern path towards a commercial art degree and With commissioned paintings for For five seasons in the 1970’s, Gene in turn, a highly successful painting career. clients such as The White House, Locklear was a consistent offensive “I’ve been painting since I was about The Pentagon, and , collecting 163 hits in 595 seven years old. I started with the little three NFL Super Bowls, Locklear’s at-bats for a career average of .274. A full- cartoons in the comic books, and then paintings have become highly popular, blooded member of the Lumbee Indian one day they sent a representative to my selling for as much as $30,000. Nation in North Carolina, Locklear is house when I was a freshman in high Although Locklear does have many one of just a handful of Native Americans school,” Locklear said. “So they signed high-profile clients, the pressure to play Major League Baseball, and was me up for a commercial art course never gets to him. According to him, the first member of his tribe to play that I took by mail, and I took that for the process of creating a painting is professional sports. Locklear played in three years, so that when I finished high the MLB from 1973 to 1977, spending school I had a commercial art degree.” time with the Reds, Although he had received his Padres and . After commercial art degree, Locklear spending a year playing for the Nippon- continued to build his skill set in Ham Fighters of the Pacific League of painting following his retirement from Nippon in 1978, baseball in 1978. Locklear decided to hang up the cleats and begin his career as a painter. Nearly “After I got out of baseball, I went and 40 years later, that seems to have been a spent a year studying art with an illustrator fantastic decision. out in New York,” Locklear said. Locklear began painting at a young That valuable experience helped age, discovering his passion for creating to springboard Locklear into his and exploring his imagination through painting career, giving him the tools art. By the time he got to high school, and knowledge to become a highly he had developed strong skills in successful painter. painting and was visited by an art school Locklear’s art tends to tell a story representative. Locklear then began his through the unique colors and Credit: www.genelocklear.com

4 BASEBALL ALUMNI NEWS

much different than the process of in analyzing the success of a painter’s painting to the next – it all depends on performing on the baseball diamond. career. However, according to Locklear, how I feel,” Locklear said. “I like to try “Those two pressures are completely what is important to remember is that and create from within and move onto different. If somebody has most people tend to get into painting something new all the time.” commissioned me, they know exactly because they love doing it. While In addition to his career as a painter, what they are going to get. They Locklear has been fortunate enough Locklear also finds time to give back should know everything about what to transcend that obstacle and make to the Lumbee Indian Nation and to I am like as a painter,” Locklear said. a living from painting, he has never the game of baseball. Locklear has been “They should know exactly what they lost sight of what is important to a celebrity instructor at several of the are going to get, so if I am negatively him. The money has never been a MLBPAA Legends for Youth Clinics, judged later on for a commissioned point of focus for Locklear, as he which provide free instruction for kids piece, then that is not my fault. At would never want to compromise the all over the world. creative integrity of his art. that point, all I am allowed to do is Since retiring from baseball almost create that painting.” “Art is one of those things that you 40 years ago, Locklear has continued Locklear then continued to contrast usually do because you love it, since to move forward, establishing a fresh, his two great passions, describing most of the time you aren’t going to new life for himself through art the differences in the way success is make any money with it,” Locklear and painting. Now an experienced, judged in baseball and in painting. said. “I’m never shooting to establish a successful artist, Gene Locklear has In baseball, you have numbers and process that is going to make me more painted his own unique masterpiece on statistics to determine how an athlete is money or anything like that. My focus the canvas of life. is on the freedom of expressing myself performing. But in painting, success is If you are interested in learning more a much more fluid concept. as an artist and trying to lay down on canvas what I am all about. My art is about Gene Locklear and his art, you “In baseball you are judged, to a meant to represent who I am.” can visit his website at: point, by what you do. A fan can go www.genelocklear.com and watch a player play, and you can We often hear the game of baseball determine whether or not you like described with a deep reverence them based on their performance and respect, the beauty of the game out on the field. Art is very capturing the spirit of anybody who political, it is unbelievable…” has ever loved baseball. In fact, some Locklear said. “You can go to an fans may even describe baseball with abstract show, and one person can an artistic tone. look at a painting and think it Gene Locklear has been able to looks like a bunch of paint thrown accomplish something that many on a canvas, and another person ballplayers strive for after retiring can look at it and think that it is – developing a passion outside of the greatest painting ever made. A baseball. Locklear has found a way to painter could be selling their art for fuse together his life story, his culture $200,000 one year, and then the and his love for baseball through his next year you may not be able to paintings. In baseball, a hitter must find their art anywhere. That is just always look towards their next at- how the art world works.” bat after striking out, and that same Being a former ballplayer, one philosophy is exactly how Locklear might think that Locklear would be goes about creating his paintings. frustrated by the lack of consistency “That’s the way I like to move from one Gene Locklear (right) speaks with local youth at the Legends for Youth clinic in Milwaukee, WI on August 24, 2016.

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TIM WAKEFIELD (LEFT), CJ NITKOWSKI (CENTER) (LEFT) AND (RIGHT) AND MIKE MYERS (RIGHT) STEVE ROGERS (LEFT) AND FRED CAMBRIA (RIGHT)

NIEKRO, ACTA AND FRAZIER HONORED IN NEW YORK CITY CURRENT AND FORMER PLAYERS HONORED AT ANNUAL MLB PLAYERS ALUMNI ASSOCIATION DINNER By Mark Newman / Special to MLB.com baseball, honestly go out there and play Braves flight when he told a teammate in NEW YORK ­— White Sox third hard,” Frazier said. “This is an award 1965 he was going to marry her; they just baseman , who set career that I can basically tell my kids, when I celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. highs with 40 home runs and 98 get older, is something that is humbling, “I’ve had a few honors, but that’s one RBIs in his first year in Chicago, was something that you work hard at every of my prized ones right there,” Niekro presented with the overall Heart & day. Whatever job you have to do, said at the start of a half-hour speech Hustle Award at the Major League whether it’s baseball or whatever job you that entranced a roomful of patrons, Baseball Players Alumni Association’s do, give it 100 percent. Show the world including 50 former or current players. 17th Legends for Youth Dinner on what you’ve got and just enjoy every “It all started in the little town of Tuesday, November 15 at Capitale. second of the day. ... You don’t need to Lansing, Ohio, when my father would be an athlete to have heart and hustle.” The Heart & Hustle Award is given come back from the coal mine, and to 30 club winners who “demonstrate In addition, Hall of Fame pitcher me and my late brother Joe would be a passion for the game of baseball Phil Niekro received the Lifetime sitting on the porch with our gloves. and best embody the values, spirit Achievement Award. Niekro, a 318- He’d get off the ride just as black as you and traditions of the game.” Yankees game winner and five-time All-Star, can imagine after picking coal back in Didi Gregorius was in pitched for 24 seasons from 1964-87, those mines. He’d sit there and open up attendance as the other finalist. and it was fellow Braves legend and Hall his little lunch bucket, and he’d have a of Famer John Smoltz -- whose 21-year Twinkie or an apple for us, we’d eat it, “When we talk about heart and hustle career began the year after “Knucksie” and we’d go in the backyard and play and passion in this game, I go out every said farewell -- who did the presenting. catch. ... We’d go inside and have dinner, day and try to be the best I can be, With Niekro was his wife, Nancy, who and my dad would fall asleep listening to show the fans how to play the game of was a flight attendant on a Milwaukee the on the radio.

DAN FOSTER, CEO OF MLBPAA ORESTES DESTRADE DIDI GREGORIUS (LEFT) AND BRIAN MCRAE (RIGHT)

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DIDI GREGORIUS (LEFT), TODD FRAZIER (SECOND FROM RIGHT) AND FRIENDS HALL OF FAMER PHIL NIEKRO

“And that was the start of it. One “Phil Niekro was a big inspiration to me,” 30 team winners. The previous overall day he threw me a . I said Candiotti, who won 151 games in winners were (2005), didn’t know what that thing was. It a 16-year career from 1983-99. “When (2006, 2007), Grady bounced around and probably hit me I was first coming up, he was with the Sizemore (2008), (2009), someplace. I asked him what it was, Indians. It was the first time I met Phil. He (2010), he told me, he showed me, I held it, kind of took me under his wing. I think I (2011), (2012), Dustin and we started playing knuckleball played catch with him every day at Spring Pedroia (2013), (2014) in the backyard. I didn’t even know Training, and all through the year he was and (2015). if there was a knuckleball pitcher in like my own personal pitching coach. I The dinner is the primary fundraiser the big leagues.” don’t think I would have made it in the big for the series of free Legends for Niekro received $500 to sign with leagues if it wasn’t for Phil.” Youth Baseball Clinics. These clinics the Milwaukee Braves organization, Mariners third-base coach Manny impact more than 15,000 children and the rest is history -- 245 complete Acta was given the Brooks Robinson each year, allowing them the unique games and 3,342 later. Community Service Award. The opportunity to interact with and learn While fitting that Smoltz was the award’s Hall of Fame namesake, at age from players who have left a lasting presenter, one of the coolest parts of 79, did the presenting as always. impact on the game of baseball. the evening was seeing Niekro’s fellow “The word of the night is knuckleballers and ‘humbling,’” said Acta, who became on hand for support. emotional during his speech as he They see themselves as “a little spoke about his parents. “We don’t brotherhood,” as Niekro said, and work to get awards, and we don’t Wakefield called Niekro its president. need a pat on the back. This is unfair. “It’s a huge honor for me, because I don’t think I should be getting an the guy was such an influence on me award for something I’m supposed to and a mentor to me his whole career,” do, because that’s the way I look at it. said Wakefield, who won 200 games I don’t think helping our community in a 19-year career from 1992-2011. should be optional. It should be a “It’s awesome what he’s passed on to responsibility.” so many people, including myself and For the Heart & Hustle Award, the Tom and R.A. [Dickey]. And being able MLBPAA formed 30 committees to follow in his footsteps and pass the torch comprised of alumni players with to [knuckleballer] Steven Wright with the established relationships to each team. Red Sox now, it’s been cool to watch his Fans, all alumni and active players career evolve the last couple of years.” vote to select the final winner from 2016 OVERALL HEART AND HUSTLE AWARD WINNER, TODD FRAZIER, GIVES HIS ACCEPTANCE SPEECH TO A PACKED HOUSE. All Legends for Youth Dinner photographs courtesy of Rob Cuni Photography

A PUBLICATION OF THE MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL PLAYERS ALUMNI ASSOCIATION 7 Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association 1631 Mesa Avenue, Suite D Colorado Springs, CO 80906 Phone: (719) 477-1870 Fax: (719) 477-1875 Email: [email protected] www.baseballalumni.com

@MLBPAA

MLBPAA Mission Statement The Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association (MLBPAA) was formed in 1982 in order to promote the game of baseball, raise money for charity, inspire and educate youth through positive sport images and protect the dignity of the game through former players. A non-profit organization, the MLBPAA establishes a place where a player’s drive for excellence and achievement on the field can continue long after they take their last steps off the professional diamond.

MLBPAA President Brooks Robinson (left) presents his namesake award to Manny Acta (right).

A PUBLICATION OF THE MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL PLAYERS ALUMNI ASSOCIATION