Baseball, for Mike has been such a large part of his life. Growing up with his dad
who played Professionally in the Saint Louis Cardinals organization minor league
affiliates (1956/57)in Oklahoma and the Florida state league after signing out of
high school, he was born into baseball automatically. As a kid, he played just about
every day, year-round. There were great memories that came from this, like playing a game of catch with Dad and pick up games with friends but he wanted to be
a kid as well. Riding and racing bikes, basketball, soccer, playing board games, kick
the can, cartoons, all with friends. By the time he was starting High School he became more interested in other sports.
A game called football had crept into his life, that he loved playing. After broken
legs in his Freshman and Junior years he never really got to play, just practice and a few games his junior
year. After High School Mike went into the Air Force stationed at the Academy and played all sports except
baseball. He and his Wife Carrie started their family in the service as well. Mike would play catch with the
kids but encouraged them to find their own way with regards to sports.
Over 30 years ago Mike saw an add in the local paper for Baseball Tryouts. He called in and signed up for
the tryout. That morning, he dusted off his softball bag and started to go to the tryouts but the decided not
to go. A few days later he received a call from The Manager of a Team called the Riverdogs, asking him to
come to a game and just watch, he’d buy a beer afterwards. He showed up and watched the game. While
watching he had flash backs to those days with his father, playing catch, holding his hand, and walking into
my first big league stadium. The green of the grass, the contrast to the infield dirt, smells, it was great and
that existed at that field he was watching. He kept thinking I could hit what that pitcher was throwing; he
could do that; he could pitch as well. After having that beer with the Manager after the game, Mike
became a Riverdog, and have been ever since and the rest is history.
Playing baseball again is now fun, Mike considers The SMSBL a large part of his life now. “I know I can’t hit
and throw like I did in the past, but for me it’s about the friendships, personal challenges, camaraderie, and
all the great players and plays in our league”.
“From a pitcher’s standpoint its wins and losses, I got the win, I took the loss”. Having played all sports over
the years, baseball is truly more than all others a team game. It takes all the players on the field and in the
line-up to collect a victory. Mike has played on a lot of other teams in the SMSBL and other leagues, but he
is a Riverdog.
Mike also played on a team which featured 4 members of the Charleston, South Carolina Riverdogs (Tampa
Bay Rays affiliate) and has MSBL World Series championships with the Las Vegas Rattlers 2007 and Sacramento Blue Jays 2018.
Since playing again, he’s played with and against about everybody over 40 in the SMSBL and won more
games than lost, and during that time established himself as a quality pitcher for the Riverdogs.
Mike’s feelings about the game of baseball is it requires all 9 fielders to act as a team and the line-up to
produce to score enough runs to collect the victory. Saying we’ve won a lot of games over the years to
Mike sounds better that he’s won a lot of games. The players in the SMSBL League are great and they show
that in tournament play everywhere they go. It’s a real honor to be admitted to be included on a short list
of great players in our area. Mike hopes to be able to do this a little longer and meet a few more players
and friends. “Thank you all so much for making this part of my life great again.
