By Jeremy Anders / MLB.com
Paul Waner's batting average with the Pirates was .340 -- which remains the best in club history.
PITTSBURGH - Pirates fans remember 15 years of steady and dominant performances at Forbes Field. His grandson remembers two wonderful summers in the Florida heat.
Pirates fans remember a young right fielder taking home NL MVP and batting crown honors as he led his team to the NL pennant in 1927. Dick Groat, the 1960 NL MVP, remembers a man who patiently taught him how to hit big league pitching in his rookie season.
Pirates fans know him for the scalding line drives that came off his bat. His grandson remembers the soft tosses that came out of his grandfather's hand when he threw batting practice to him.
The man is Paul Waner, one of the greatest players in Pirates history whom the team will honor by retiring his number on Saturday. He rapped out 3,152 hits and patrolled right field at Forbes Field for 15 of his 20 years as a Major Leaguer.
Those prolific statistics helped define his career on the field, but his kind and patient nature as a grandfather and coach helped define him as a man after his playing days ended.
Paul Waner III's memories of his grandfather are limited to two summers spent with him in the early 1960's. Waner III was 11 and 12 years old then and traveled from his Fort Worth home to spend the summer with his grandpa in Sarasota, Fla.
Those summers became some of the fondest memories of Waner III's childhood and he wished he could have gotten to spend more time with his grandfather. Waner died of emphysema in 1965.
"He was a really super nice guy," Waner III said. "He liked kids, he was great with me and fun to be around."
The pair spent their days in the outdoors, fishing for catfish on an ocean inlet before moving to the baseball diamond, where Waner threw batting practice for his grandson.
That was the only time Waner III said he really enjoyed playing the game his grandfather had been a legend at.
"I tried [baseball], but I just never enjoyed it enough to stay with it," Waner III said. "I played football and that was it."
But the exception to that was on a small field in Sarasota. The game may not have been fun when he was surrounded with his peers, but it became an absolute joy when it was just him and his grandpa alone on the diamond.
"It was a lot of fun," Waner III said. "He was patient; I could see he spent a lot of time coaching. To be honest, I was not a good baseball player at all, but we'd go out there and work out and he'd tell me, I think, I was better than I really was."
The patience Waner showed to a young boy on a small field was the same patience he had when he dealt with Major and Minor League players during his coaching career.
He got into coaching immediately after he retired when he began a short stint as the manager of the Florida International League's Miami Sun Fox in 1946. Waner later was a hitting coach in the Minor Leagues as well as a Spring Training batting instructor for several teams including the Pirates.
Even when he wasn't an official coach or instructor with a team, he was always willing to help another player out. In 1952, Pirates shortstop Groat was signed out of Duke to play for the Pirates.
Beginning his career in the Major Leagues was baptism by fire for Groat and he struggled at the beginning of the season. But work put in with hitting coach George Sisler along with plenty of extra practice with Waner helped turn things around.
Waner owned a batting cage in Harmarville, east of Pittsburgh, and Groat worked with him in the mornings before practice. He remembers Waner's patience and kindness as a teacher.
"He was fun to be with, I really liked Paul Waner," Groat said. "He couldn't have been nicer to me in every way. He helped me build confidence, and I ended up leading the Pirates in hitting that year as a rookie.
"He was very patient, very understanding and had a great hitting philosophy. Even at that age, he could still hit that machine and hit that ball hard. He had such an enthusiasm for life and for swinging the bat and he was just fun to be around."
Waner kept that love for baseball as well as a love for the outdoors throughout his life. He shared both with his grandson when they were together in the summer.
"I had a lot of fun," Waner III said. "I was too young to really appreciate it at the time, looking back."
Now, on the day his number will be retired, fans can look back on years of dominating offensive performances as a player, while Waner III, Groat and others who knew him off the field will remember the kind, patient man he was.
Jeremy Anders is an associate reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
No comments:
Post a Comment