Roy Hobbs ball beats hurricane

By TOM MOORE
Everyone’s familiar with that old postman’s slogan: “Neither, rain, snow and all that stuff……”
Well, that applies to the avid baseball player--not those big buck boys--but the average Joe and Jill that never outgrow the game.

Case in point: That last hurricane that took a swipe at Florida and grazed the Ft. Myer area didn’t blow away the 17th Roy Hobbs World Series. A couple of days was lost, but the Hobbs organization weathered the storm. Those ball players 28 and over and 38s flew, drove and got here anyway they could. And after a bit of hustle and bustle, back to back games (double-headers do make the muscles cry) the Series was back on schedule for the first week and the remaining 3 weeks.

Former Beacon Journal Sports Editor Tom Giffen heads the Hobbs organization with a great crew that I’’d compare to the old Beacon Journal days when we were all ““family”” and it was about real journalism. That’s just the way I felt in my second year of the Florida sun in November.

This old retiree (12 years) is back to the basics of 50 years ago when I started out as a young “hillbilly”” reporter in West Virginia. And, as they say, it’s just like riding a bicycle.

You stumble a bit on an interview or two--you write fast and hope you’’ll be able to read later what you’re putting in your notebook.

(Just ask those folks who have worked with me……I do have a nice, legible handwriting, right?)

For those not the in the know, Roy Hobbs Baseball is named for the fictional hero in the movie “The Natural.”

This year there are 190-plus teams that Tom and his staff look after, scheduling game, scheduling umpires, publishing a daily “newspaper” with results and features.

Ages of the players run from 28 to over 70. There’s a Women’s Division and this year, a Father-Son Division has been added.

I find it great to talk to these folks from all over the country and Puerto Rico. Not a grouch in the bunch (well, I don’’t count). They all have stories to tell about their baseball feats, their hometowns, their families.

And it’s really a small world. Ran into a fellow from Minnesota, who, it turns out, worked for my wife’s nephew for two years. Another player and his wife know a young lady in Columbus by the name of Carter Chenoweth. I was her baby-sitter at one time. Her mom, Sue, and her Dad, Doral have been our best friends for 50-plus years.

Doral is semi-retired. He’s the Grumpy Gourmet for the Columbus Dispatch. (Food editor Jane Snow knows him.) I’’’ve talked to a lot of Ohio players, many from the Akron area. Last year four teams from our area won their division title in the 16 Hobbs World Series.

But don’ look for any results in our Beacon Journal even though nobody had to leave the office to get them. Doesn’t seem to be too much interest in what local folks do, even though it’’s delivered on a platter.

(That last remark is not sanctioned by the Robb Hobbs Organization, it’s mine and only mine along……and again shows the lack of interest in local news these days.)

We’ve had an “incident” to mar our Hobbs family. I looked forward to this second year down here to renew acquaintances, especially 84-year-old Preston Liles from Nashville, Tenn.

He’s a former umpire and is a long-time fixture at Roy Hobbs (Yes, Preston, I said fixture……he’ll curse me out if he reads this). But he had a mishap that landed him in the hospital and it was found he’’s a candidate for a pacemaker which he is getting.

He groused and growled about the whole thing. I tried to cheer him up as the EMS folks were loading him into the ambulance: ““Preston, that’s sure one hell of a way to get out of work!”

He hollered out something at me as they closed the door and sped away.
When we called a couple of times and went to visit, he was sleeping. No doubt the nurses couldn’t take anymore of his jokes and decided he should sleep for a spell.

Now I was brought down to write feature stories for the daily poop sheet of results etc. But when you’’re a member of this family, other duties call: cooking and selling hotdogs, checking in manager and players, handing out their T-shirts, and stapling the poop sheet together and delivering it to the different fields.

Among the Hobbs family is Meg Giffen, Tom’s daughter, whom some of you folks might remember. She also worked for a time in telemarketing at the BJ.

So now it’s on to brave the sun and heat of Florida in November. Hard duty, but somebody’s got to do it.

Click on the headline to go to the official Roy Hobbs web site.