GOOD TO REMEMBER - I heard the name Taylor Baynum over the loud speaker as “batting for Nanticoke” last Sunday night at the Rehoboth Little League Park.
My memories flashed back to Cape and 1986 and right-handed pitcher Lynn Baynum. Lynn was the first feature sports story I wrote for the new Cape Gazette back in 1994. Lynn had lost his life in a car accident. He was a student-athlete I knew well. We were buddies, I’m proud to say. I wrote the story, but I cannot read it because it makes me cry.
Lynn’s father, Lynn, was at the ball park Sunday night and refers to his son as Junior. He knows of the story, but has never read it because “he just isn’t ready.” Taylor Baynum is Lynn Junior’s nephew and son of his brother, Brad, and wife Amy.
Britney Baynum is Lynn and Michelle’s daughter. She is 16 years old and on her way to Hawaii as a member of an age group select volleyball team. Britney is representing the town of Salisbury on a Maryland Select team. Lynn Jr. and his wife Michelle honeymooned in Hawaii after their marriage and Michelle is accompanying her daughter and will show her all the places her parents visited when they were there.
Lynn Sr. and his wife, Shirley, have the Pizza King in Seaford. Lynn’s mother, Trudy, and her daughter, Traci, own and operate Pizza Villa in Midway.
Yes, this is information already known by the local community, but memories are always good.
“Brittney walks like her dad and even has a habit of hitching up her right shoulder just like Junior,” Lynn Sr. said. “I just wish he was here to see her.”
John Prine sang “I never will remember what I never did forget.”
Life does go on in the songs of our children and grandchildren; all we have to do is look and listen.
THE GODFATHER - Sometimes I feel like the Don Corleone of aging sportswriters. I feel I should be standing on the pitcher’s mound at Little League games with an orange peel in my mouth, motioning all the players to just circle the bases.
Big numbers accumulate around a long life like stats for Fat Albert Pujols. I’m cool with it all and as I watched three towns take the field in 12-year-old Majors, I was not shocked that I had taught many of their parents, although I was a little disconcerted that I had coached Rehoboth Manager Jon Stevenson who was a great athlete in all sports because of natural speed. But something about Jon drove most coaches crazy and I think it was his streak of independence and hard-headedness, or what true Sussex Countians call “all boy.”
BUT FOR YOU - Judson Wall, catcher for Lewes Little League All-Stars, is the child of Wendy and Bart, both former students of mine from somewhere in the 1980s. I had Wendy in study hall and she could flat out play some UNO. Bart and Wayside Auto at Wescoat's Corner go together - if you ever see them on a matching test of Lewes history.
One time in class I asked Bart about a candy apple red Ford pick-up with cap on the back. “How much is it,” I asked Bart, because teachers are always dredging for deals.
“She’s clean, Fredman,” Bart said. “She has 157,000 miles but for you only 27,000.”
A true sense of humor cannot be taught - it is genetic. As Eddie Murphy said, ”You cannot teach a person to be funny or even to have a sense of humor.”
But if the Cape district is interested I will run an in-service for staff for $5,000 with bonus incentives for every grumpy person I turn into a comedian. Yes, that’s an outlandishly funny concept.
GRANDDADDY COOL - Wendy Harrington, Milton Elementary teacher, and her sister, Lenna, grew up as Pritchetts. Wendy said of her father, Bill: “We always knew that my dad would be granddaddy cool and when he’s with my daughter Anna he doesn’t hear anyone’s voice but hers. And the word no is never spoken to Anna in Pap’s presence.”
I took this photo at lunch on July 4 because I just wouldn’t listen to the no never spoken. I have to Hook
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agree that Bill represents granddaddy cool.
SNIPPETS - There was a kids stampede from Venus to the liquor store prior to the northbeach 5K last week. Pictured here from Quakertown, Pennsylvania gang are the Gallagher brothers, Brady and his kid brother J.P. Joey Irwin from Vienna, Va. ran the big race and was crowned 9 and under champion in the fast time of 22:35, a course record.
