R.I.P. Rand

“I hear your son is a good ballplayer.”  I don’t remember the first words everyone says to me, but I remember Rand’s.  Colin had just started Pony League, and the City Council had just grown tired of losing another legal skirmish the City should have won, so I found myself walking into a conference room at the law offices of Lane and Waterman.  Rand extended his hand in greeting, and instead of saying “hello”, he asked about Colin.  If you were cynical, you could chalk it up as a ploy to gain my favor.  But Rand wasn’t much for ploys.  As genuine a man as you’ll meet, Rand’s ice-breaker was as sincere as the briefs he’d expertly file on behalf of the City.   

Rand was decades into serving the community as President of East Pony Baseball when I met him.  Moving up from Little League, we had decided on East Pony rather than some fancy travel team, and our lives became much the better for it.  East Pony (now Babe Ruth) baseball was, without question, the best two years of an exceptional decade of youth baseball in and around Davenport.  It was competitive baseball, more than sufficient to prepare for high school ball.  But the real drawing card was how family-friendly and home-spun the games were.  The players and parents on your team became friends.  That’s normal.  But the players and parents of the teams you played against also became friends. 

That had everything to do with Rand.  He guided the league as wisely as he umpired a game.  Fair to a fault, he called em as he saw them, and I can’t say he was ever wrong enough to argue with.  I should have been angry with him, as he cost me the one perfect baseball season I could have had.  Asked to manage a team in Colin’s 14 year-old season, Jim Morris and I hatched a plan while we were with the 13 year-old Davenport East All-Stars at the Pony League World Series in California.  Jim would manage the team and thus be able to bring his son Nick (easily one of the best players in the league) to the team, and I would step down to be coach and be able to keep Colin on the team.

It was perfectly within the rules and would have resulted in a team (with other players I had) that would be near impossible to beat.  It was the Pony League equivalent of Mike Trout, Jake Arrieta, Joey Votto and Buster Posey playing on the same team.  Rand said no.  I explained how the plan was well within the rules.  Rand acknowledged the plan was within the rules, but he said it wouldn’t be fair, and he would not allow it.   Thus, Nick and Colin played against each other rather than with each other the next season.  And thus the Malin and Morris clans would root for teams their sons did not play on.  Rand was right.  The seasons of our lives moved on and the friendship and goodwill remained.  I still cheer for Nick, and Jim still cheers for Colin.  It will always be such.

Prepare well.  Be honest.  Play fair.  Don’t showboat.  The lessons of baseball are the lessons of life.  Both Rand and I found the ball diamonds of Davenport a welcome respite from the job, and we made it a point to never talk shop while on a ballfield.  But he would represent the City in court in exactly the same manner as he umpired a game and presided over the league.  Prepare well.  Be honest.  Play fair.  Don’t showboat.  Simple rules, all.  But transformative in application. 

Every place I have ever worked has a few sacred spots; places I’ll go to throttle back and let contemplation about the long run help me think through an issue.  Some of the places, I’ve helped build.  Some of the places, Mother Nature made.  Some of the places, I spent some inalterably happy moments in.

Earlier this year, I was asked to say a few words at one of those sacred spots.  A modest but inalterably happy ballfield tucked alongside Duck Creek where we played Pony baseball.  Rand’s extended baseball family had decided to name that ballfield Rand Wonio Field.  As Rand’s family assembled, he was chagrined at the surprise, for it may have been a little too much attention for such an honest and humble man.  I did the best I could with the words at the time. 

We thought we were gathering to honor his service, for that is what you rightly do.  But we were really there that day, and every day that follows, to honor his spirit, for that is what never leaves.

Rest in peace.