Batter Up for Divine Mercy


Eddie Popowski 'Delivered the Goods' for Men and God

Eddie Popowski is a baseball legend you've probably never known.

The first time I heard the name was in 1965. He had been named manager of the Pittsfield-Berkshire Red Sox, the Boston Red Sox Double A affiliate in the Eastern League. At the time, this eighth grader lived in Pittsfield.

The Double A Red Sox played their home games at beloved Wahconah Park, a now-legendary minor league baseball field and the oldest continuous-use ballpark in the world. The grounds hosted its first game in 1892. This year, Wahconah Park will host its new team, the U.S. Military All Stars.

Always hustling, I worked out a deal with Pat McKernan, the Red Sox general manager. For cleaning out the locker rooms and bathrooms before home games, Pat would comp me with free admission to the game plus eats at the concession stand. I felt like J.P. Morgan having just engineered the deal of a lifetime.

'Spiritual' not 'Religious'
That summer, I got to meet such future major league stars as George "The Boomer" Scott and Reggie Smith and to absorb the atmosphere of a professional locker room. It came in handy years later, when I began covering major league baseball as a profession.

Popowski didn't have much formal education but spoke with the intelligence of an expert and wisdom of an elder. On the field, he was an aggressive competitor, not above bench jockeying and not below having his pitchers "brush back" opposing batters. He was an old school, baseball lifer in the best sense of that phrase.

Popowski, whom everyone called Pop, dealt with his ballplayers in a fatherly manner. He spoke in calm tones and common sense. Just a guess here, but it might have been because of his devotion to Divine Mercy, which he acquired from his Polish ancestors. Pop wasn't what you'd call "religious" but "spiritual." He was a doer, not a preacher. He didn't wear God on his uniform sleeve, but he did carry a worn image of The Divine Mercy in his wallet.

If the Pittsfield Red Sox had a Sunday game, when players arrived in the locker room, he'd ask how many went to church. He didn't make his players go but encouraged them not to slack off with God.

Pop was born on Aug. 20, 1913 in Sayreville, N.J. He began his professional baseball career in the early 1930s by winning a job at second base for the legendary barnstorming team The House of David, a team whose players looked like Jesus: long hair and beards. Pop, though, was given an exemption. He was too young to grow a beard.

Pop signed with the Red Sox farm system in 1937 and spent an astounding 65 years in the Boston organization as a minor league player, coach, and manager. He served in World War II and managed in the Boston farm system through 1966.

Baseball Magic
Pop would not only manage Pittsfield in 1965 and 1966 but also serve as third base coach. One of his patented moves that never failed to bring "ooohs" and "ahhhhs" from the crowd was his behind-the-back flip. A batter would ground a foul to Pop in the third base coaching box. Pop would field the ball and toss it back to the pitcher by winding up, whirling his hand behind his back, and wrist-flipping the ball from nowhere directly into the pitcher's glove. It was baseball magic.

In 1967, Pop was promoted to the parent Boston Red Sox as a third base coach. That was the year known as The Impossible Dream, when the Red Sox stunned the baseball world by winning their first championship since 1946. It was the year that turned the franchise around.

Pop served as Boston's third base coach for seven years. Two times, following the firing of Red Sox managers, he had brief stints as the club's interim field boss. In 1969, he finished out the year after the Sox fired Dick Williams. In 1973, he relieved Eddie Kasko. Pop retired a winner. He won six of the 10 ten major league games he managed. As a minor leaguer, he won 1,568 game and lost 1,357 for a .536 winning percentage.

In 1977, after handling special assignments for Boston, Pop returned to the Red Sox farm system for the rest of his life. As he grew older and into his mid 80s, the Sox reduced his responsibilities, but each spring in Winter Haven or Ft. Myers, Fla., where the Red Sox conducted spring training, Pop would be in uniform, hitting fungos to ballplayers and giving advice when they asked.

He also spent time with a lot of the old timers in the Red Sox system, guys like Mace Brown, Sam Mele, and Ted Williams. I sat in on many "bull sessions" when these guys would get together and loved listening to the tales.

A Teacher, not an Intimidator
Pop wasn't a screamer like Earl Weaver, future Hall of Fame manager of the Baltimore Orioles who then managed the Elmira Pioneers, the O's Double A affiliate in the Eastern League. Weaver could peel the paint off the walls when he chewed out a club in the locker room.

Not Pop. Pop would teach, not intimidate. He got used to seeing me hang around the park and took a liking to me. Pop was a little guy, like me. We both grew to the same adult height: 5'4". He would frequently tell me that baseball has room for little guys, and would spin stories of Nellie Fox, Most Valuable Player in the American League for the Chicago White Sox in 1959, and Albie Pearson, a star outfielder who came up to the majors through the Red Sox chain.

I had played Little League and Babe Ruth League baseball, plus a million sandlot games. I modeled my style of play after Pop. We were leadoff hitters. We were scrappers. We got on base anyway we could: a walk, hit by the pitch, a bunt, or bloop single to the opposite field. Once on base, we'd rattle the pitcher and steal second. He used to tell me that little guys "could play this game."

Shagging for Pop
When his schedule permitted well before a game, after I finished my jobs for Pat McKernan, Pop would let me go on the field and shag fly balls during batting practice. At the time I was playing left field for Union Federal Savings Bank in Pittsfield's Babe Ruth League. Pop would give me advice on hitting and fielding. I never forgot that, how he took the time to pay attention to me.

After that glorious season in 1965, when the Red Sox won the Eastern League championship on the last day of the season, I lost touch with Pop for the next 16 years. Beginning in 1980 and for the next 10 years, I worked as a syndicated writer and broadcaster, covering major league baseball. I was young, getting paid great money, and using my skills with words. I had found dream work.

In 1981, I would make camp in February and March in Florida (and later Arizona) for major league baseball's spring training. In Florida, I based myself in Winter Haven because of its central location on the peninsula and its proximity to the Florida camps of other teams. It also happened to be the spring training home of the Boston Red Sox.

Reunion on the Lower Field
One day in February of '81, I wandered down to the minor league complex at Chain O' Lakes Park. There, on the lower field, was Pop, banging out fungos to the outfielders.

"Pop," I yelled and jogged over to him. I had to reintroduce myself. The 13-year-old kid he knew was now a 29-year-old man. After I told him who I was, he recognized me right away, smiled, and gave me a hug. "A little guy can play this game," he said, laughing.

A few years later, in Winter Haven, I had a long talk with Pop after the workouts were over. We covered a lot of areas, including religion. Pop was a member of the Sayreville, N.J., Knight of Columbus Our Lady of Victory Council 2061 and a regular communicant at Our Lady of Victories Church.

He said God was an important part of his life. He talked about being a Knight. He said he enjoyed the camaraderie in being with "the guys." His fellow Knights, he said, were like his spiritual teammates. He then told me about the various fund raising projects of the Sayerville council. Pop would also use his connection in baseball to bring autographed baseballs and pictures to kids in hospitals. Typically, Pop wouldn't take any credit.

I didn't ask him about Divine Mercy because I didn't know about it myself. I do know he carried a picture of the image of The Divine Mercy - probably a prayercard printed here on Eden Hill in Stockbridge, Mass. - in his wallet. In hindsight, I didn't have to ask Pop about Divine Mercy. He lived it, and so I can say without hesitation he "preached it" with his actions.

Proclaiming God's Mercy
Eddie Popowski was acting all those years as an agent in helping to fulfill what St. Faustina says Jesus told her to do: Proclaim His mercy to the whole world. The message of mercy is that God loves everyone. He is always ready to forgive even the most heinous wrongs. He will never refuse a request to be forgiven and to be loved. Pop treated his ballplayers that way. He treated everyone that way.

Pop was one of the easiest men I've ever been around. He had that effect on virtually everyone who came into his sphere of influence. If you were down, he'd ask you what was wrong. If you were happy, he'd tell you a joke. If you were sick, he'd tell you to go home and take care of yourself.

I asked him if all the salty talk and rough behavior in the locker room and in baseball bothered him. He told me something I've remembered ever since.

"Nah," he said. "I learned long ago as a manager that you gotta let people be who they are. I don't try to change anyone. I never tried to change a kid's batting stance, and I didn't try to change them as people."

But did his example of clean talk and clean living rub off?

"Yeah, probably," he said. "I was father to hundreds of boys. You've got to remember, in the minor leagues, you're dealing with young men. Sometimes they're away from home for the first time. They're in a strange town, riding busses. It can be a hard life." He said that combination could make a young man open to direction and guidance. He admitted that "a few" of his players copied his gentle manner.

He was actually saying that listening and guiding begins when you allow a person to tell you where they are in life. You don't try to force them where you want them to be. It is a lesson taught over and over by the great saints. The most effective form of evangelization is to live your life as a child of God. It rubs off.

If Pop changed one man for the better, he helped change the world.

Fit for a Saint
Later I used to see Pop once a year in Winter Haven, then maybe once or twice at Fenway Park in Boston during the regular season. He had slowed down a bit, but he still loved to get in uniform and be on the field. He laughed easily, told jokes, and was perhaps the most respected baseball man I ever encountered. I literally never heard anyone say one bad thing about Pop.

Eddie Popowski died on Dec. 4, 2001. Today, I have no doubt that Pop is in heaven. I "know" two things: (1) He is experiencing an afterlife fit for a saint and (2) It includes baseball.

Pop's highest compliment for a player who did well was that "he delivered the goods." Pop "delivered" both on the field and in living God's mercy.

Today, when you enter Boston's spring training complex in Ft. Myers, you'll come across a diamond called "Eddie Popowski Field."

On Opening Day this year, I will hoist a tall cool one for Eddie Popowski.

Dan Valenti writes for numerous publications of the Marians of the Immaculate Conception, both in print and online. He is the author of "Dan Valenti's Journal" for thedivinemercy.org.

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