COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — From Jim Leyland’s childhood home on West Indiana Avenue in Perrysburg to his eternal baseball home on 25 Main Street here, the drive is eight hours going on forever.
Or so it might have seemed.
If you had told a teenaged Leyland that he would be elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the 5-foot-9, 170-pound schoolboy star — blessed with more brains than brawn — would have rolled his eyes harder than a scalding grounder.
“I would have said you were out of your mind,” he told me. “I never even dreamed of it.”
But, sometimes, life works in beautiful ways.
A career bus leaguer as a ballplayer, Leyland instead became one of the game’s greatest managers, leading Rust Belt renaissances in Pittsburgh and Detroit and winning a World Series championship with the Florida Marlins.
On Sunday, in this timeless lakeside village in the foothills of the Catskills, he will formally take his place among the giants in baseball history.
Leyland — born in Toledo, bred in Perrysburg, and now beatified in Cooperstown — is to be the 23rd manager and just the second northwest Ohio native inducted into the most hallowed museum in sports. Toledo native Roger Bresnahan, a turn-of-the-century catcher for the New York Giants, was enshrined in 1945.
“I’m humbled but anxious, a little nervous about the speech, to be honest with you,” Leyland said as he prepared for the ceremony, which will begin at 1:30 p.m. and be televised live by MLB Network. “I’ve watched almost every Hall of Famer’s speech. A lot of them are emotional. I’m kind of an emotional guy. I hope I can keep that to a minimum.
“It’s an awkward situation because you kind of have to talk about yourself. I’m not used to that. But you do have to explain your journey.”
His latest milepost is the culmination of a life’s baseball work, and, of course, a journey with familiar roots.
Long before Leyland went on to become a legendary winner — and revered as an old-school character as irascible as he was endearing — he was a kid from Perrysburg.
It’s where his remarkable story began and — while he might have moved away — never really ended.
On this weekend to celebrate the past, Leyland, 79, is as proud of his hometown as ever.
“Perrysburg, what a great place,” he said. “When I grew up, it was still a village, about 5,500 people, and the whole town was one square mile. Obviously, that’s changed dramatically, but it was a great place. In those days, everybody left their doors open and everybody pretty much knew each other. A great place to grow up.”
Flash back to those formative years, and you can begin to see the chapters to come.
One of seven children of James and Veronica Leyland, young Jim — or Jimbo — enjoyed a childhood straight out of a Matt Christopher novel.
At Perrysburg High School, he was voted most popular senior boy in the Class of 1962 and a three-sport standout. He was also the quarterback for the football team and point guard for the basketball team.
But he breathed baseball, like his old man, a glassworker and a hard-edged former semi-pro ballplayer. (Wonder where Jim got his heart-on-the-sleeve intensity? James once was so thrilled after his son kicked a game-winning field goal to beat Genoa for the Northern Lakes League championship that he had a heart attack.)
Dad passed the game down to Jim and his four brothers, hitting balls to them in the backyard of their white, two-story house, and it became more than a pastime.
Jim played all day, all spring and summer, from his elementary years at St. Rose Catholic School on. Even as he chose the most taxing position — he was a catcher, like his boyhood idol, Yogi Berra — he suited up for three Perrysburg teams most seasons, leaving the house in the morning wearing the jerseys for all of them.
“I used to get in trouble with my coaches because I’d sometimes miss part of a game or I’d be a little late because I had another game,” Leyland said. “I’d rip off one shirt, then go to the next game. I just loved it.”
“His dad would drive us from place to place,” remembered one teammate, Jerry Glanville, who famously became a coach himself in the NFL. “We would play a doubleheader every day.”
In high school, Leyland tried his hand at coaching, too, helping with his younger brother’s Little League teams.
“One game I clearly remember was when we were out of pitchers, the bases were loaded, and we had to get through three innings,” Larry Leyland said. “Jim had been working with me on pitching. He called time and told me it was my time to step up. I had never pitched in a game, but he told me he had confidence in me to do the job.
“After I finished warming up, I looked over to the bench and Jim smiled at me and fist pumped. He instilled confidence in kids, encouraged kids, never yelled at kids, but instructed them. Kids on the team always knew he had our back.”
Jim’s big break came in 1963 after catching the eye of the Tigers’ longtime Toledo-area scout, Herman Kander.
“Jim didn’t have the greatest natural talent, but he had a great baseball mind,” said Kander’s brother, Marty. “Herman saw that and appreciated it.”
As Leyland has told reporters, Kander came to his house with a contract. His father answered the door.
“Mr. Leyland, we would like to sign your son for $1,000,” Kander said.
“Sir,” his dad said, “we don’t have that kind of money.”
In truth, Leyland signed with the Tigers for $400 a month and no bonus, and the scout’s appraisal proved prescient.
He spent seven seasons in the minor leagues, never rising above Double-A. But the Tigers so liked that mind — and his ability to connect with his teammates — that they offered him a job as a minor league coach.
The rest is baseball history.
Leyland went on to manage 22 seasons in the majors, reaching the heights of the sport.
And the coolest part? He always shared the success with the place where it all started.
When he was in Pittsburgh, he helped arrange a baseball game between Perrysburg and Genoa at Three Rivers Stadium. (“We played after a Pirates game,” Yellow Jackets coach Dave Hall said, “and Jim stayed about five innings for the kids. Our kids were going nuts.”) In Florida, he waved his childhood best friend, Ned Hoffman, onto the field as the Marlins celebrated their World Series title. And in Detroit, he returned often, including for the dedication in 2012 of Jim Leyland Family Field at the new high school. (He donated $100,000 for the project.)
“I’m very proud to be from Perrysburg,” Leyland said.
Lately, as one writer after another has asked him to reminisce, he’s thought a lot about those roots.
He wonders what his mom and dad would think — “I’m sure they’d be awfully shocked and proud” — and wishes he could share this weekend with everyone else from back home whose support made it possible.
Many are here.
Many, sadly, are not, including his sisters Sharon and Judy, brothers Thomas and William, and Hoffman.
But Leyland knows they’ll be looking down
And better yet …
If Cooperstown is baseball heaven, they’ll have the best seat in the house.
Most Popular
Comments / 0