That's a very sad note, Randy. Thank you for posting it.
An online obituary in the Times Union said Mike was 68, that he'd graduated from Union College with a BS in engineering. There will be funeral services held at Hans Funeral Home at 1088 Western Avenue on Saturday, June 10, at 11 a.m. Calling hours will be for an hour before.
Those who didn't get to meet Mike missed a gentle force. The force part was easy to see: a big-shouldered, broad-chested fellow about 5-10, with brown hair and a nearly rectangular face, Mike was a fine athlete with a terrific darting fast-ball, a sinker and a smooth, always surprising curve.
Hittable? Hardly. He tossed for I think the Braves or the Blue Jays in the early aughts for about eight years, when, I'm guessing, he was in his mid-forties, and I may have recorded two hits in twenty at-bats against him. If someone told me that Mike, who was also a good hitter, had thrown a dozen one- or two-hitters, maybe even a no-no, I wouldn't have been surprised.
The gentle part of him was easy to see: Mike liked chatting before and after games as much as he liked the pitching. He spoke softly and thoughtfully, often about the game. I was taking up pitching then, at 54, and Mike was a great source of how to toss this pitch or that and when to throw them. It didn't matter that we were usually competitors. Mike's notion was each guy gets better, then we all get better.
Mike had a very good mind with interests well beyond sports I recall he liked talking about science and movies, too. His generous nature, made him around 2015 or so, the third or fourth winner of the Jim Jordan award, given to league players for their sportsmanship.
Sometime between 2009 and 2012, on a wintery December day, I asked Mike and another mutual friend, the just named Braves manager Jim Jordan, to help me check out some fields that the league might have in Troy. I was the manager then of the Red Hot Peppers.
The league was doing its regular winter's search for fields, and I'd heard that there were three possible places we could have for a song and some labor in Troy. The city said it would give them to us if the league would fix them up and tend to them.
Before I dragged all the managers and the board into this search, I wanted the opinion of other guys who knew the game, Mike and Jim. So we spent an afternoon looking at the fields: two were just too small (center would have been about 240 feet out, better for T-ball), and the third, a beautiful site high up on a hill, surrounded by pines, would have been terrific, if the league could have afforded it. Mike worked then as a landscape designer and he estimated that getting in roads and electricity would start somewhere beyond $200,00.
Not long after that, Mike found work in Florida. We wrote emails and stayed in touch for a few years and then we lost touch.
I don't remember the exact year that Jim died, of a heart attack, but I do recall that it was a few months after he, Mike and I went looking for fields. It saddens me, for me and the league, to have lost both fellow searchers.
-Mike
-- Edited by mikehart on Thursday 8th of June 2023 01:30:48 PM
Horrible news. Way too young. A great player and even a better human being.
As a coach at LaSalle, I always tell my players about the man who built Ichabod Crane's beautiful field. It's a neat feeling to play there. Mike was going to play for our 55 Giants the first year we formed, but he suffered an arm injury before the season.
Mike was a friend of mine. Mike listened carefully and always had thoughtful insight. Mike always saw the quality in people. Mike left the Capital District to work in Florida. He was a civil engineer as most of us knew. I knew he designed the Joe in Troy, but never knew he had his hand in designing Citi Field too. A Yankee fan. His dream from what I was told by one of his childhood friends was to work for NASA. Hes circling the heavens now. Rest in Peace my friend.
Ralph
-- Edited by Ralph Caputo on Sunday 11th of June 2023 10:05:40 AM
-- Edited by Ralph Caputo on Sunday 11th of June 2023 10:08:24 AM
