Baseball has been such an important part of my life, almost embarrassingly so. I sometimes put too much time and energy into it and neglect other things that are going on.  With our creative endeavors in progress I find myself watching baseball less and less this season, which is not a bad thing.  I've watched thousands of games, hundreds in person.  I think I probably went to sixty games in 1989, most of them sitting in the cheap seats with Ronnie Crena instead of studying like I should have been.  I've caught five foul balls, including one the night the Padres clinched the West in 1998.

I can't remember the first time I remember watching baseball. My earliest memory of an actual baseball game was actually a special one for the game. My Dad took me to a day game in August of 1977, and it was the game that Lou Brock broke Ty Cobb's career stolen base record.  I remember it being a big deal, though I was barely seven years old and didn't really know why. I did know that my favorite player at the time, Dave Winfield, played in that game for the Padres.

I got to meet Dave Winfield once; my Mom had entered me into a contest to be a Padres Benchwarmer, where a young child got to go in the clubhouse and dugout and meet the players, then had seats for the game that night. I remember being so excited going into the clubhouse, first meeting the then-manager, Jerry Coleman, but meeting Winfield was kind of a strange experience - he was sitting on a chair in front of his locker, wearing just a towel and sanding down the handle on his bat. He graciously signed an autograph and I was led away to meet other famous and not-so-famous Padres. I got some autographs of future hall of Fame players (Ozzie Smith, Rollie Fingers), and others that were not as well-known but were among my favorites (Jerry Turner, John D'Acquisto, Bill Fahey). Randy Jones, who would later coach me at a baseball camp, also signed an autograph. I missed Tim Flannery, I think he had been sent down or was injured.

I look back on that day with a vague memory, as it happened over thirty years ago. And my biggest regret was that I didn't appreciate one person in particular as much as I should have. The one person that looking back was the man most worthy of a little hero-worship that day. And it wasn't the Hall of Fame slugger, or the Wizard at short, or one of the CY Young Award winners. It was the unassuming man whose voice I had heard many times before the 1980 season broadcasting the Padres games. That of the first man I met that day, Jerry Coleman.

To those who were unfamiliar with Jerry Coleman's background, they would say he was a broadcaster that was prone to the occasional malaprop; my favorite went something like "Winfield goes back and jumps, his head hits the wall, it's rolling back toward the infield".  Now, I know he didn't mean to imply that it was Winfield's head rolling back toward the infield, but he sometimes got too excited and let that excitement get the better of him. I will admit, it took me some time to hear about some of Jerry's accomplishments, and I was not alone; Jerry Coleman was not the type of man to talk about himself. He was humble, almost to a fault. His broadcast partner Ted Leitner would refer to him as the Colonel, and during the eighties and nineties I think he deferred to Coleman's wishes and was not as vocal as he would have liked to be. Like Leitner or not (I like him), he spent most nights between April and September with the man, and probably knew him about as well as anyone. 

Jerry Coleman was a baseball player first, signed as an amateur player by the Yankees in 1942 when he was eighteen years old after a tumultuous childhood. But his playing career would wait, as he joined the Marine Corps and became a pilot, flying 57 missions in World War II. He returned after the war and toiled in the minor leagues until 1949, when he made the Yankees and started 128 games, some alongside Yogi Berra, Joe DiMaggio and Phil Rizzuto.  He won the Associated Press Rookie of the Year that year, and the Yankees won four World Series with Jerry on the team. They roomed him with Mickey Mantle because he was such a positive influence.  His playing career had to take a backseat again, as the United States was involved in the Korean War.  Coleman flew 63 missions in the Korean War, the only professional baseball player to see combat in two wars. He returned to the Yankees and retired as both an All-Star and a Lieutenant Colonel. 

He worked for the Yankees for a time, then became a Broadcaster, calling Yankee games for CBS radio for seven years, including his former road roommate Mickey Mantle's 500th career home run. He broadcast for the California Angels for a few years, but then found a home behind the microphone in San Diego, starting in 1972 and every year after, save the one they asked him to manage the team.

A more humble man, you will never meet.  And while Ted Williams said he was the best defensive second baseman he'd ever played against, he never really got his due as a player.  I don't think a baseball player should be considered a hero for what they do on the field; it's a kid’s game after all. But Jerry Coleman is a true hero for the things he did off the field, and for the way he carried himself on and off the field; with class, dignity and grace. May he Rest in Peace.

Jerry's book, 'An American Journey: My Life On the Field, In the Air, and On the Air.' is available at Amazon here.