Don McMahon's Baseball Life

“Baseball Lifer.”

We’ve all heard the term, and we know what it means. It’s that guy who dedicates his entire life to the game, seemingly to the exclusion of any outside interests. He played it when he was younger, and lasted as long as he could. Then he coached, or managed, or scouted, or moved into a front office, or became a broadcaster. Usually it’s some combination of those things. It’s the person who metaphorically has to have the uniform cut off before he’ll leave the game.

You likely have someone in mind when you hear that term used. If you’re a Red Sox fan, it’s Johnny Pesky. If you were a Yankees fan in the 1990s, or a Rays fan in the early 2000s, it’s Don Zimmer. To Kansas Citians it was Buck O’Neil, while fans in St. Louis had Red Schoendienst, and for the Orioles if would be someone like Cal Ripken, Sr.

The best example might be Jimmie Reese with the Angels. They retired his number and put him in their Hall of Fame even though he never played or managed a major league game for them. They did it because he was an Angels batboy way back when they were just a minor league team in the Pacific Coast League, then played for them as a minor leaguer, then returned to them as a coach in the big leagues at the age of 71 and was still carried on the payroll as one until he died in 1994 at the age of 92. Nolan Ryan named one of his sons after him. Reese never married, had no kids, and, aside from two years in the Army during World War II, he never drew a paycheck for anything other than baseball. If a Baseball Lifer Hall of Fame ever exists, Reese will be a charter member.

And then there’s Don McMahon.