We talked here on Mothers Day about how much we love all of the moms in the old neighborhood who not only allowed our love for baseball to grow, but encouraged it by not allowing us in the house during the summer unless it was to eat dinner or come out of an electrical storm. On Friday, we lost perhaps the most important baseball mom in the neighborhood when Ruth Conley passed away after a tremendously courageous battle with cancer.
I say Mrs. Conley was the most important baseball mom because she was the mother of the very best baseball player in the neighborhood: James Conley, the fireballing right-hander, who could pick ’em with anybody at third base, and who seemingly could hit the ball as far as his boyhood baseball hero Frank Howard.
James, who died on July 8, 1973 at the age of 14, was probably the best baseball player I ever saw, and I say that not because he was the nicest guy I ever knew, or because he was the best friend to everybody in the neighborhood — child and adult alike. I say it because he was the best baseball player I ever saw — or at least played with.
Whenever I see the movie “The Natural” and it comes to the part when Roy Hobbs is pitching to the Whammer at the fair I think of James, particularly at the part when Hobbs throws his first fastball and the sportswriter Max Mercy, who is catching, has to throw his glove down because the velocity of the pitch hurts his hand so much.
I can’t tell you how many times that happened to me whenever I caught James, whether we were playing for the Dapper Dan Reds or simply playing pitcher-catcher in the field behind my house. Nor can I tell you how many times it made James laugh to see my red hand come flying out of that catcher’s mitt. But it didn’t prevent him from throwing the next pitch even harder. He had to get that arm ready, because there was no doubt in either of our minds he was going to pitch in the big leagues, and I will be convinced to my final day that he would have made it to the big leagues.
I wouldn’t say Mrs. Conley understood baseball at that time, nor would I say she even liked it, even though her husband Jim was probably the most learned baseball fan I have ever known. She reminded me a lot of Lou Gehrig’s mother in “Pride of the Yankees.” When it came to James playing baseball, she tolerated it, not because she was opposed to him playing, but because she worked during the day at Christopher’s Photo Lab across the street from her house, and the only time she got to see James during the day was on her lunch hour, which happened to coincide with the third or fourth inning of our baseball game.
We played a lot of interrupted games during the summer because we had to have James, and James always had to run home “to see Mama.” Then when he came back to the field an hour or so later we would resume. And the best part of his return was he was always carrying an umbrella with him, because Mrs. Conley did not want him to catch pneumonia again if it started to rain.
I don’t know how many umbrellas were purchased by the Conley family in those days, but I know an awful lot of them were left hanging on the mailbox on our garage through the course of the years, whether James was stopping by to play ball or was on his way to school.
The door to Mrs. Conley’s house, though, was always open to everybody. She was the most caring, loving and generous person so many of us have ever known. She was also the strongest and the most courageous. Her spirit, her will and her deep faith carried her through horrible illnesses she would survive until Friday. But she also experienced so much personal tragedy and heartbreak, that I have no idea how she not only endured them but grew from them and made those around her even stronger because of them. She shepherded her family through the deaths of her husband, two of her children and three of her brothers, and somehow brought us all closer together through them. She is one of the most extraordinary people I have ever known.
She fought so valiantly through so many illnesses that my mother began calling her The Comeback Kid, and I’ll always remember how many times she made it clear that everybody was welcome to come back to her home anytime for a visit. She took care of us from the time we were small children and, along with our own mothers, we couldn’t have been in better hands. I can’t tell you how many baseball games we kept score to in her living room, nor can I tell you how many times I heard her say, “And shut that door behind you! I don’t need flies,” whenever we’d take a break and run next door for some of Mrs. Ruppenkamp’s world famous root beer.
They are gentle and loving memories we will carry for the rest of our lives, because one of our baseball moms, Ruth Conley, was always so gentle and loving in carrying us.
Mike Burke is sports editor of the Cumberland Times-News. Write to him at mburke@times-news.com.
Mike Burke - Sports
The door to a friend’s house is never closed
- Mike Burke - Sports
-
-
Happy birthday, Brooks
Today is Brooks Robinson’s birthday. That’s right, good ol’ No. 5 is 75 years young, a term the great Chuck Thompson used all of the time, and a term that, even as a child, drove me up the wall when Chuck would use it to send birthday greetings to somebody who had just turned 100.
-
How to e-mail (or phone) us your games
It will remain one of the great mysteries of my life (until I hit the lottery, that is) that seemingly grown men and women who have the mental capacity to sit at a computer, compose an e-mail and send it, cannot look at the little league/softball game reports that appear daily in the Times-News and duplicate the format we require for publication.
-
The DH, the rook, ‘old school’ and the Codes
Baseball, to say the least, is presently buzzing in the Baltimore-Washington corridor, as the Orioles streaked to baseball’s best record through the first 29 games, while the Nationals seem to be every bit the contender they were said to have been, sitting atop the National League East as of yesterday.
-
Take me out to the coin collector’s?
You know, you try to do the right things, but sometimes it just doesn't pay off in the end. And that's fine.
-
We’d have taken Hines back, too
The Mega Millions madness is over for now, and that’s a good thing, because, frankly, I’m a little bit ashamed of all of you. Really. If you could have just seen yourselves and the way you’ve been acting these past 10 days, with nothing but greed soaring from your eyes, you’d be embarrassed, too. It’s as the great Charles E. Lattimer used to say (to me quite a bit, actually), “(Jiminy Crickets), look at yourself, son.”
-
With no rule, there is no spirit to break
Three days after paying a king’s ransom for the No. 2 pick in the NFL draft and the right to select Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III (or, if Jim goes completely Irsay on us, Stanford quarterback Oliver Luck), the Washington Redskins were informed by Commissioner Vernon Wormer that they had violated double-secret probation, bringing to mind a piece of Redskins history that would produce one of the great lines in sports.
-
No need to wonder what ACIT means to Karcher
This weekend’s 52nd Alhambra Catholic Invitational Tournament will mean a great many things to a great many people, from the players who will be competing, to their coaches, schools, family and friends, and to the fans who come to see some of the best high school basketball in the country.
-
Shot clock should help loaded ACIT to light it up
The idea had been floating in Joe Carter’s thoughts since last year’s ACIT final between DeMatha and Benedictine, when DeMatha head coach Mike Jones, to help alleviate his team’s injury and foul issues, slowed the pace of the game in the first half of the title game his Stags would win, 53-43.
-
Senior Day honor is the least Mosley deserves
COLLEGE PARK — Sean Mosley will be honored at Comcast Center today on Senior Day prior to Maryland’s game against Virginia, and it’s difficult to believe it’s been four years since we got our first glimpse of the 6-foot-4 guard out of Baltimore’s St. Frances Academy when he was the Most Outstanding Player in the 2008 Alhambra Catholic Invitational Tournament field.
-
Somewhere over the rainbow starts here
During a break in the program Sunday night, former Pittsburgh Pirates slugger Bob Robertson sat at a table backstage sharing some stories from the day when he played some of the finest defensive first base and hit some of the longest home runs in the major leagues in helping the Bucs to the 1971 world championship.
- More Mike Burke - Sports Headlines
-
