Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 15, 1994 TAG: 9406160001
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
His new teammates, most all of them strangers to each other, stood around him. Smith didn't know most of their names yet, nor was he clear on their abilities - or their attitudes.
The first vote would settle that.
"Do you all want to play for fun or play to win?" Smith asked.
To win, the team voted.
OK then, Smith said, playing to win would make a difference in the way he handled his job as the team's manager. It would mean the best players - by his judgment - would get to play the most. Others would have to settle for more time on the bench.
"I'm going to play it the way I see it, and that's all I can say," he said.
It was April, before their first team practice, and just three weeks until their first game. Smith had picked the ragtag assortment of men that stood around him at the tryouts for Roanoke's new adult baseball league held the weekend before.
An assortment of hats shaded their faces from the spring sunshine. Winston Cup. The New York Yankees. The Redskins and White Tire. Smith wore the colors of the Virginia Cavaliers.
They had yet to discuss a team name.
Someone suggested Geezers, referring to the thining hairlines and the gray under many of their caps. But Smith, 37, offered an alternative, pulled from his fond memories of coming to the Roanoke area as a boy and fishing for catfish.
They voted.
The Roanoke Mudcats. It was a name that would give the team an immediate, defining image, particularly when compared to the mundane monikers of some of the other teams in the league, like the Stars or Royals or Classics.
"Down and dirty," Smith said. Tough.
But managing the Mudcats was more than Smith had bargained for.
Like the others, he had come out to the tryouts hoping for a spot on a team. He ended up managing one himself when more players showed up at the tryouts than expected, and they needed volunteers to take on the extras.
He volunteered.
And Lawrence Hall, another hopeful-turned-volunteer, signed on as his assistant.
They had never met before.
With the name settled, Smith shrugged his shoulders, and to the newly anointed Mudcats, he asked for their support, if not their early forgiveness. "You know, I walked into this just like you all did."
\ Absent from the group - and the voting - was Larry Beheler, who missed the first practice because of work. But at the second practice, he approved of the name.
"I think we look like a bunch of catfish," he said. "Mustaches, grungy, old, fat guts. All catfish have fat bellies."
Hitting grounders around the infield, he also quickly established himself as an unofficial coach. He hit a ball to Smith at third base, who let it slip between his legs. "You know what controls the glove, don't you? The butt," Beheler shouted out.
"Get your butt down, George."
He hit another ball Smith's way. This time, the ball landed in Smith's glove.
"I'm telling you, your butt controls it all."
Increasingly, Smith looked to Beheler more for guidance as the season opener drew closer. Beheler brought in Jim Hamrick from his city softball team. Hamrick would become the Mudcats' primary catcher.
On the field, Beheler is one of the team's three pitchers. The others are Robert Vaden and Bob Padula.
At 42, Beheler is the oldest of the three. Vaden and Padula are both 37. Beheler is the fastball pitcher, with the best control of the group. Vaden and Padula are both junkball pitchers. They throw more curveballs and knuckleballs.
Padula is a left-hander, 5-feet-9, 195 pounds. He works in sales and marketing, and recently moved to Roanoke from California, where he pitched in an adult baseball league last year.
Vaden is a right-hander, 5-feet-11, 165 pounds. He works at Valley Fasteners, his father's nuts and bolts business. He last pitched in college.
Beheler, also a right-hander, is a policeman at Carvins Cove Reservoir. He stands 6 feet and weighs in at 239 pounds, down 11 pounds from the April tryouts. Still, he is the largest of the Mudcats.
The smallest is Jim Hamrick, also a policeman, at 5-feet-8 and 165 pounds.
Overall, despite an 0-5 start, the pitching of Beheler, Vaden and Padula has been the team's strongest point. They just haven't had the fielding and hitting to back them up.
For example, too many times the Mudcats have loaded the bases and failed to score any runs. In baseball, these failed opportunities not only fail to put points on the scoreboard, they can wreck a team's confidence and belief in itself.
But true to their back-alley tough image, the Mudcats have maintained a gritty attitude. The players voted to win, and so far, they have showed a willingness to work hard toward that goal.
They take their baseball seriously.
Two months into the season, they still practice once a week, sometimes twice a week, in addition to playing games on Sunday. After their second game - a 12-2 loss - they agreed to meet one evening after work at an indoor batting cage in Salem to work on their hitting.
"We should have done this a month ago," said outfielder Kevin Jackson, waiting his turn in the cage. The mechanical pitching machine inside was whipping balls at them at 65 m.p.h. "If we can hit this, we can hit the pitching we're facing."
They scored eight runs in their next game.
"All of us were good ball players at one time," said Smith, the manager. "The problem is it's been a long time."
Most of the Mudcats, like Beheler, haven't played baseball since little league, and one of them, Keith Tincher, has never played baseball before.
They come from different backgrounds, although they don't really know it because they have allowed little time for chitchat or idle small talk. They only know what they see each other do on the field.
Most of them were raised in Roanoke or the Roanoke Valley. The farthest exception is Bob Padula, who grew up in Massachusetts and remains a loyal Boston Red Sox fan. He even has been wearing a Red Sox uniform while waiting for his Mudcats uniform to come in.
They work different jobs.
Around the infield, there is a clinical social worker, a construction estimator, a paralegal and an air traffic controller. Around the outfield: a real estate title examiner, a warehouse worker, a chemical salesman and the owner of a video store chain.
For sponsors, the Homeplace Restaurant and the Vinton law firm, Cranwell & Moore, each contributed $500 for uniforms, which the team bought at a discount from Lee Ralph's Sporting Goods in Wytheville. They paid $860 for 16 uniforms, including shirts, pants and hats.
\ A final vote.
In the Mudcats' third game, in the first inning, with the bases loaded and two outs, Lawrence Hall struck out.
"I'm going to play it the way I see it," Smith had said.
And he pulled Hall from the lineup.
Hall reacted bitterly. He quit the team on the spot and angrily threw his Mudcats shirt at Smith as he stormed from the team's dugout.
Smith remained calm during the outburst.
After the game, the team praised him for his cool. He then called for a vote. If Hall wants back on the team, should they let him come back. At 59, Hall was the team's oldest player, and its worst, and he had leveled a similar outburst at Smith once before.
The vote was unanimous. He wouldn't be back.
That left Hall's job as assistant manager open.
Smith offered a nomination. "I am a true believer in the democratic process," he said.
The vote again was unanimous. Larry Beheler.
by CNB