By Mandy Catoe
It takes a bit of conniving to get Larry Small to stand in the limelight.
The Lancaster Dixie Baseball League board members lured Small to the mound to throw out the ceremonial first pitch on March 23, the opening day of LDB’s 61st season.
After a long, but in no way complete list of what he has given local youth baseball, LDB secretary Jill Laney said, “Mr. Small from this day forward, Field 6 will be named the Larry Small Field.”
Briceson Hall, 11, returns ceremonial first pitch to Larry Small. Hall plays in Ozone League for 11-12 year olds. Hall who has played on the fields since he was 4 said “I understood what he has done and this was a tremendous honor. I felt that I was lucky that I got to catch it”
Small, 71, has served the local baseball community for 44 years and is still going strong.
He says the kids keep him young.
“I was very humbled and honored,” Small said. “I don’t know what to say. I’m usually the one in the back of everything and I am shocked that my people did this to me.”
Small constantly praises others. He understands and teaches teamwork.
“The gift of baseball is learning to work with other people,” he said. “The best pitcher in the world has to have someone to field that ground ball and throw the batter out.”
In addition to his time, Small shares his money and his faith. He has paid the registration fee for children who wanted to play but had no money. And he prays for all them.
“We will not turn a child away from Dixie Ball,” Small said. “We never have. We will find a way.”
As a coach, he drafted a little boy with muscular dystrophy to play on his team. On the last game of the season, he did a little conniving of his own to make sure that kid knew what it felt like to make it safely to first base.
Laney said Small is a reminder of what we should all strive to be.
Once word got out on facebook about the naming of Field 6, many former little leaguers began reminiscing and posting their decades-old Dixie Baseball pictures.
Small has coached hundreds of little leaguers and affected thousands of kids. The league fields at least 300 kids every year and has had as many as 700 a couple of seasons.
Every little boy in uniform dreams of making it to the big league. Small insists that they keep their focus on their grades. He coordinates with the school district to insure no games are scheduled the night before major academic testing.
He reminds the dreamers that only a tiny percentage will make the pros.
“Your education is more important than anything you will do,” he tells them.
His players have become lawyers, bankers, ministers, and all-around good young men.
Nearly 30 of the boys he coached played college or professional baseball.
One of the most famous is Pep Harris who pitched for the Anaheim Angels from 1996 to 1998.
“Larry was one of my first pitching coaches,” Harris said by phone last week. “He taught me to stay relaxed, not rush and just throw strikes.”
Harris, who now resides in Irmo, said Small is like family and he was happy to see Lancaster honor someone who gave so much to the youth.
Harris didn’t have a major league photo of himself to share for this story, but five minutes after the phone interview, he sent a text of a team photograph from the 80s. It was the Lancaster County Natural Gas team and a young Harris was standing next to Coach Larry Small.
A young Pep Harris stands next to Coach Larry Brown in the early 80s.
Found online: Pep Harris in MLB uniform, Anaheim Angels in 96-98.
Robert Howey, sports editor of The Lancaster News, played a little right field as a youngster at Wylie Park.
He feels Small deserves the honor of having one of the fields named in his honor.
“If Lancaster Dixie Baseball had a hall of fame, Larry would be a first-time unanimous selection,” Howey said.
Small began coaching in 1971 after two years of military service in the army. Forty-eight seasons have come and gone since then. He took four years off to watch his son, Brad, play baseball for Erskine College in Due West, SC. Larry, his son Brad and grandson Blayne all learned the fundamentals of the game on the Dixie Baseball fields at Wylie Park.
Small and his wife Gayle recently celebrated their 49th wedding anniversary. He still works as a licensed contractor and gets up before dawn to work at his daughter’s restaurant.
His son Brad is Vice President at First Citizens Bank and his daughter Kelly Gibson owns and runs the South 200 Grill that has been in the family since 1965. The Smalls have five grandchildren.
Larry Small with his wife Gayle and son Brad.
The Dixie Baseball League fields have been quiet during spring break. The games will resume the week of the 22nd. Small will be back at the park, cooking in the concession stand, walking the grounds offering praise and encouragement and high-fiving the kids.
Small summed up what he has learned and taught for nearly half a century. He took a second, gathered his thoughts and said, “You learn there is more than you in this world.”
(All photos in this story were supplied. A version was published in The Lancaster News April 19, 2019.)
No comments:
Post a Comment