Don Booth

Father Mudhen

BY GLENN MILLER
Roy Hobbs Baseball

Don Booth is more than a baseball player. He’s also more than a manager, administrator or coach.

He’s a leader and builder of Roy Hobbs around his hometown of Kent, Ohio, where he runs the Kent MudHens’ 4 teams. He was a founding member of the MudHens 38s team.

For 15 years he has been the chairman of Northeast Ohio Roy Hobbs Board of Governors. That means more than signing forms, filling out lineup cards and making a few phone calls.

Roy Hobbs Hall of Famer Joel Weinstein wrote in his vetting document for Booth’s Hall of Fame nomination about some of what the 74-year-old retired Chrysler executive does.

“I was told by them (four players) that the only reason they are still playing baseball is the encouragement and leadership from Don,” Joel wrote. “They feel there would be no team or league without Don. One of them described Don as a second father.”

Booth has been retired for 14 years and has put his added leisure time to good use as a youth league softball and baseball coach.

Oh, then there’s his work with Challenger Baseball. There’s little surprise Booth, who has been playing in the World Series since 1995, was deemed worthy of the Hall of Fame.

Yet … “I was a little taken aback,” Booth said of receiving the news. “It’s a wonderful honor. I had no clue about it.”

And his organizational labor?

“I just help do the paperwork,” Booth said.

Warren Clark

No courtesy runner here

BY GLENN MILLER
Roy Hobbs Baseball

Warren Clark’s route to the Roy Hobbs Hall of Fame skipped the customary stops.

No high school baseball. No college baseball. Heck, he was the first guy cut from his high school baseball team.

Clark was a trackman at St. Joseph Regional High School in Montvale, N.J. and at Villanova University. Although he wanted to do track and baseball in high school he was told it had to be track.

“I didn’t get my fill of baseball in high school or college,” Clark said.

When he was 36, Clark, who will turn 64 on Dec. 17, re-kindled his love of baseball.

The Ridgewood, N.J., resident has participated in more than 20 Roy Hobbs World Series. He also manages and recruits players, including family members.

Hall of Famer Mic Stump vetted Clark’s nomination and talked to pitcher Bob Skolbar, who lost a no-hitter when Clark bunted in the seventh inning. Skolbar didn’t let it bother him.

“I’d have a no-hitter on my resume,” Skolbar told Stump. “But I wouldn’t have a best friend.”

Away from baseball, Clark is a lawyer and municipal judge. At the ballpark he’s organized a team named after his father and an uncle, the Bub Global Dodgers.

The old trackman says his former sport has helped him continue playing baseball.

“When you score what do they call it?” Clark said. “A run.”

He works at staying fit and has run all the way to the Hall of Fame.

Dave Cooper

A life filled with baseball

BY GLENN MILLER
Roy Hobbs Baseball

Dave Cooper is all baseball all the time. Or so it seems.

“My days are filled with baseball,” the 58-year-old resident of Belle River, Ontario, said. “My years are filled with baseball.”

The new Roy Hobbs Baseball Hall of Famer does more than play the game. He’s a coach and administrator and has a son, Andrew, pitching in the Washington Nationals organization.

And now Cooper is a Hall of Famer.

“It’s exciting and humbling at the same time,” Cooper said.

Over the summer he coached the Tecumseh Thunder to a provincial championship and runner-up in Canada’s national tournament.

His list of Roy Hobbs titles is so numerous he can’t remember all. “I don’t keep track,” Cooper said.

That’s understandable given how much baseball he has played and coached. Cooper recalls one year at the Roy Hobbs World Series when he was 45 he played 3 consecutive weeks in 3 age divisions and played in 30 games.

“All 9-inning games,” he pointed out.

His enthusiasm for baseball is boundless.

“His passion for the game never wavers as he has coached and played in thousands of games and treats each as it his last,” said Dave Bortell, who has played with Cooper.

He’s also grown Roy Hobbs in Canada and has brought teams to Fort Myers every year. He’s playing 2 weeks in this year’s World Series.

Thirty games in 3 weeks might be a bit much, even for Dave Cooper. He’s now 58, after all.

Gary Dover

Paying back the game

BY GLENN MILLER
Roy Hobbs Baseball

Gary Dover is certainly flattered by his Hall of Fame selection but doesn’t want the honor to be about him.

“I feel an urgent sense of responsibility for paying back the game for all it’s given me,” Dover said.

The game has given Dover a great deal. Friendships. Competition. A sense of community.

Dover, a 59-year-old CPA and resident of Franklin, Tenn., has also played the game with skill and enthusiasm. He’s used his CPA skills to serve as treasurer and board member of Middle Tennessee Adult Baseball. Dover has also played on World Series championship teams in three age divisions, 40B, 48AA and 55B. He’s a 4-time team MVP at the World Series.

Recently, he heard about the Hall of Fame. His reaction?

“I thought it would be all about me,” Dover said. “Oh, look at me. I’m in the Hall of Fame. It wasn’t that at all.”

One of his initial reactions was, “How did I get here?”

Like many Roy Hobbs players he once played softball.

“I refer to it now as the “s” word,” Dover said.

But chance meetings with fellow 2015 inductee Kevin Marden and Hall of Fame president Tom Giffen led him to baseball when he resided in Akron, Ohio. He started playing Roy Hobbs there in 1991.

When he was vetted for the hall, compliments tumbled forth from those who know him.

“Great teammate.”

“Gentleman.”

“Quality human being and dear friend.”

And now, Hall of Famer.

Kevin Marden

Impressive championship resume

BY GLENN MILLER
Roy Hobbs Baseball

Kevin Marden’s Roy Hobbs’ resume may be unparalleled.

• Six World Series championships in 3 age divisions with the New England Red Sox, 5 in AAAA divisions.
• Three-time World Series MVP.
• Two-time champion in the father/son division with his son, Kevin Marden Jr.
• Seven championships as manager of the New England Red Sox women’s teams.

Anything else?

Oh, yes, the 69-year-old (as of Nov. 5) Newton, Mass. resident is now a Roy Hobbs Hall of Famer.

“Overwhelming,” Marden said of receiving that news. “I knew at one point in time I would be on the ballot.”

His Hall of Fame candidacy supporters included former big-leaguers Bill Lee, Gary Allenson and Rick Miller, who all played not only for the Boston Red Sox but also on Marden’s New England Red Sox.

“Every time he’s won the World Series I’ve been on the mound for the final out,” said Lee, who pitched 14 years in the majors.

Lee said he’s also played fast-pitch softball with Marden and said Marden has done a great deal for women in baseball. And he’s a good player.

“A tremendous hitter,” Lee said of Marden.

Marden started playing in the Newton (Mass.) Little League in 1957 and then played Babe Ruth ball, high school ball, started for four years at the University of Massachusetts and in 1966 played in the prestigious Cape Cod summer league.

The highlight of his career may have been playing with his son, Kevin Marden Jr.

“The experience of being on the field with your kid is unbelievable,” Marden said.

Denny Brown

Living a baseball dream

BY GLENN MILLER
Roy Hobbs Baseball

Many Roy Hobbs Hall of Fame inductees are stunned when they receive the news about their selection. Not Denny Brown.

“I kind of knew it was coming along,” said Brown, a 69-year-old resident of Palo Alto, Calif.

He served on the first Roy Hobbs Hall of Fame board, which made him ineligible to be selected. He’s now off the board this year, which opened the door.

Brown earned the Hall of Fame honor with more than 20 years of managing and league duties in northern California. It’s a big job, one that involves more than 100 players on different Antiques teams.

The team even has a website, antiquesbaseball.com
The Antiques slogan is streamed across the top of the site.

Here’s the slogan: “Baseball for old guys who can still play.”

Brown is still very much a baseball player, one who relishes everything involved with the game from the camaraderie to the skill and fitness needed to keep playing.

“It’s the people, the physical challenge,” Brown said. “Not many can handle the physical challenges of baseball at our age.”

Brown can still play and he’s returning again to Fort Myers this year for another World Series.

“Field of dreams,” Brown said of playing on big-league fields every fall.

Brown has lived a baseball dream, winning several Roy Hobbs titles, organizing the Tri-Valley League, coaching his daughter’s softball teams and his son’s baseball teams when they were young.

Clyde Jones Sr.

Baseball an avocation

BY GLENN MILLER
Roy Hobbs Baseball

Clyde Jones Sr. continues spreading the news about Roy Hobbs Baseball, a continent and country away from Fort Myers.

He’s done it as a player, founder of the Solano Braves (1991) and Fairfield Masters (1998), league official, manager and publicist of sorts.

A few months after his NorCal Antiques won the 65-and-over Class A Division of the 2012 World Series, the newspaper in Solano County, Calif. where he resides profiled him.

The Daily Republic featured a photo of Jones in his uniform and the story sported this headline: “After 18 years, Jones wins World Series ring.” The Daily Republic profile noted that, “Jones had been to the final four three other times with various teams.”

Jones, 68, has accomplished much on and off the baseball field. He has an MBA and is a financial professional who has worked for a Fortune 100 company and is a Navy veteran.

But Baseball has stayed a constant in his life.

In 1963, he played for Gene’s Lounge semipro team at age 15 in his hometown, Alton, Ill. The team included remnants of Negro League teams. He played service ball, and once out on his own as a professional, he looked for places to continue his chosen craft – a baseball player. And now he is a Hall of Famer.

Jones said he plans to bring about 20 family and friends from California for the induction ceremony. That group will include his 84-year-old mother.

Randy Moselle

A fixture in Minnesota Amateur Baseball

Most baseball players never make one Hall of Fame.

Randy Moselle is now in two.

The Roy Hobbs Hall of Fame is the second to honor the 61-year-old resident of Rogers, Minn. He was inducted into the Minnesota State Amateur Baseball Hall of Fame in 2012. Moselle has now played 28 times in the Minnesota State Amateur Baseball Tournament.

In recent years, though, that tournament has taken a back seat to the Roy Hobbs World Series. “All of our summer baseball is now pre-conditioning for the Roy Hobbs,” Moselle said.

For a Minnesota native who lives only about 20 miles from Minneapolis, the opportunity to play on the Minnesota Twins spring training fields is always a treat. It’s also a recruiting tool when he asks potential players to try Roy Hobbs.

“That catches their interest,” Moselle said.

Moselle played Babe Ruth, high school, junior college baseball and then at the University of Minnesota.

One of his current teams is the Loretto Larks, who list his age on the roster this way:

There’s no question about his Hall of Fame selection. He has one RHWS AAAA championship to his credit and numerous final four finishes. He’s also earned the honor by helping grow Roy Hobbs in Minnesota.

His wife of 38 years, Diane, hopes to attend the induction ceremony with their two grown daughters.

The best part of Roy Hobbs for Diane, though, isn’t the wins or awards.

“I think camaraderie of the guys,” Diane said. “The relationship of guys from all over Minnesota. A sweet bunch.”

Mike Murphey

Softball isn’t baseball…

BY GLENN MILLER
Roy Hobbs Baseball

Mike Murphey’s adult baseball story is similar to that of many Roy Hobbs players in some ways.

He spent years playing fast-pitch softball and was so good and such an efficient organizer that he was inducted earlier this year into the Spokane (Wash.) Softball Hall of Fame.

But like many Hobbs’ players, softball isn’t baseball so when the chance to play again came in 1993 he leapt at it.

“Baseball is where my heart is,” said Murphey, a Spokane resident.

Now, he’s being inducted into his second Hall of Fame in 2015.

“This was completely unexpected,” Murphey said. “An overwhelming honor.”

He earned the honor through talent, organizational wizardry and business savvy. Murphey, 64, organized a baseball league in Eastern Washington in 1996 and has been active in area leagues since.

He also convinced Roy Hobbs to add the Locker Room option in 2008 and has been running that since. Murphey also operates fantasy camps for the Oakland A’s and Seattle Mariners.

Murphey enjoyed playing softball.

“Fast pitch was a great game,” Murphey said. “Challenging. But it wasn’t baseball.”

Since starting baseball leagues in the Spokane area he has recruited players.

“I converted a lot of softball guys to baseball,” Murphey said.

He’s made the long cross-country trip from Spokane to Fort Myers for 16 years to play in the World Series. He’s sampled other adult baseball groups but believes Hobbs offers the best experience.

Murphey has helped make it even better.

Marty Stanczyk

“What else could be better?”

BY GLENN MILLER
Roy Hobbs Baseball

Marty Stanczyk turned 60 in July and knows he’s lucky to still play baseball. It’s something the Westmont, Ill., resident reminds teammates about when they come to Fort Myers for the Roy Hobbs World Series.

“What else could be better?” Stanczyk said. “We’re playing baseball, we’re 55 or 60 years old and we’re in Florida in the middle of November on the best fields. And we’re not dead.”

No, Stanczyk is very much alive and now he’s a Roy Hobbs Hall of Famer. The news of his selection was welcome.

“He was beyond words,” said Nancy Stanczyk, his wife of 36 years.

The Stanczyks are very much a baseball family.

“We always have time to talk about baseball,” Nancy said.

Marty and Nancy met at Comiskey Park during a Chicago White Sox game when they were in high school.

Their son, Luke, played baseball at Benedictine College and he has played with his father in the Roy Hobbs father/son division.

But, Nancy said, Marty nearly lost baseball and much more in 2007 when he was diagnosed with melanoma in an eye. He needed surgery but postponed it until after that year’s World Series. He then had surgery and has been cancer free since.

He’s also had 2 knee surgeries but nothing, it seems, can keep him away from baseball.

He started organizing adult amateur teams in the early 1980s, later found out about Roy Hobbs and has been playing in the World Series since 1991.