Our baseball trip in 2003 consisted of a tour around our home area, Cincinnati. That is, we traveled to northern Ohio, through Indiana, western Tennessee, northern Georgia and Alabama, north to Kentucky and back to Cincinnati. Well, not exactly, Cincinnati, but close. Florence, Kentucky\u2014across the river from Cincinnati\u2014had started an independent baseball team, the Florence Freedoms, but the stadium was not yet built. So, in an effort to still host home games, the team played in a community park in Hamilton, Ohio, some 50 miles north of Florence\u2014and about 15 miles from Ginny\u2019s parents.<\/p>\n
Taking advantage of free room and board, we stayed with the Skinners for a couple of nights and in return took them to see the Florence Freedoms<\/a><\/strong> play the Evansville (IN) Otters<\/a>. <\/strong>That night was the first time we saw Jason Tuttle. We saw him play, but we didn\u2019t remember him. Not right away.<\/p>\n The game was uneventful\u2014Florence won 8 to 5. The seats were hard, being run-of-the-mill aluminum bleachers found in all community parks. The food was uncreative, dogs and peanuts. But this is not the purpose of the story. Five weeks later we saw Jason Tuttle again. This time, we were at Batavia, NY, one of our favorite parks (just 30 miles from our home). Batavia was playing the Vermont Expos (now the Vermont Lake Monsters<\/strong><\/a>)\u00a0Before the game, Ginny was perusing the players\u2019 stats that included the previous team they had played for and she noticed that one person had just moved from the Florence Freedoms to the Expos\u2014Jason Tuttle. She leafed back in her scorebook to that previous game and found that we had indeed seen him play in Hamilton. She excitedly punched Dan and pointed out her find. At that moment, the player in question came out of the dugout and stood looking out at the grounds crew on the field, as if he\u2019d been summoned by mental manipulation. Dan said, \u201cThere he is. Go talk to him.\u201d Ginny said, \u201cNo. You go. You\u2019re on the end.\u201d\u00a0 Dan replied with a poke in her ribs and said, \u201cYou\u2019re prettier.\u201d Ginny glared at him, then mumbled something about \u201cpathetic men\u201d and made her way over to the edge of the dugout. (Batavia\u2019s field is very small and intimate, so it\u2019s easy to speak to the players without shouting at a distance.)<\/p>\n When she reached the player, Ginny said, \u201cMr. Tuttle.\u201d She\u2019s always polite that way\u2014even though she probably could\u2019ve been his grandmother. Well, to be fair, at least his mother. The young man turned, something like suspicion on his face. She said, \u201cThis sure beats the heck out of Hamilton, Ohio, doesn\u2019t it?\u201d It took a few seconds for the sentence to register. She hurried on: \u201cWe saw you play for the Freedoms a few weeks ago. You hit a single that night.\u201d Then he smiled. He probably didn\u2019t have any groupies. So she forged ahead: \u201cWe live in Rochester, but we were down visiting family in Ohio when we saw you.\u201d He replied, \u201cYeah, I was just traded. And this is better than Hamilton!\u201d She wished him good luck and returned to her seat. Every time Jason came to the plate, we would cheer for him. He\u2019s not big or muscular. In fact, he\u2019s rather short. And he didn\u2019t hit the long ball. But he is one of the fastest runners we\u2019ve ever seen. He could hit a little blooper past the pitcher and leg it out to be on first before the second baseman knew what to do with the ball. And he hustled! He played outfield and if anything even came remotely close to him, he was scrambling for all he was worth to retrieve that ball and get it to the appropriate player.<\/p>\n Two nights later, we were back in Batavia\u2014we said it\u2019s one of our favorites\u2014and the Expos were still there. After we\u2019d been in our seats for a while, Mr. Tuttle ran over to us. We\u2019re not hard to find, always sitting behind homeplate. Through the netting, it was easy to see his excitement. He asked, \u201cWere you here last night?\u201d No, we couldn\u2019t make it. \u201cI hit a triple!\u201d he blurted. Dan replied, \u201cAre you kidding?\u201d \u201cIt was great!\u201d He was practically dancing with excitement. Ginny said, \u201cI\u2019m sorry we missed it.\u201d Jason\u2019s smile could hardly be contained to his face. Being away from home, it seemed for that moment we were surrogates for his family. And we were happy to oblige. We chatted for a while, then he returned to the dugout and we cheered him on through the game. He didn\u2019t hit a triple that night.<\/p>\n After that, Dan kept track of Mr. Tuttle via the Web. He was traded, released, and picked up by an independent team, the Grays, in 2005. When Dan found out that Jason would be playing in Elmira, NY, we drove the two hours to see the game. After we found our seats, Ginny walked over to the Grays\u2019 dugout (without being coerced this time) and requested to speak to Jason. When he came out of the dugout, puzzlement on his face, she said, \u201cMr. Tuttle, I don\u2019t think this place beats the heck out of Hamilton, Ohio.\u201d He smiled widely. She added, \u201cYou remember us?\u201d His smile widened further: \u201cOh yeah, at Batavia.\u201d \u201cWell, Dan\u2019s been following your career since then and when he saw you were playing here, we had to drive down.\u201d Surprise colored his face: \u201cFor me? How long was that?\u201d \u201cTwo hours, but we like baseball.\u201d He seemed flattered\u2014maybe he still didn\u2019t have any groupies. \u201cWow, thanks.\u201d Ginny knew not to draw things out, so she wished him luck. He smiled again and said, \u201cThanks for coming.\u201d Of course, we cheered for his every at-bat. But he didn\u2019t hit a triple then either.<\/p>\n That was the last time we saw Mr. Tuttle, which was too bad. Jason seemed to embody the genuine spirit of Minor League Baseball. He hustled, he dove for the ball, he strove every minute to play his best and to support his team. After seven seasons in the minors, never quite making it to the \u201cShow,\u201d he had accumulated a 296 batting average, a 362 on-base percentage and a fielding average of 984. The last team he played for was Sioux City, Iowa, in 2008. Last year, Dan actually tracked down Jason\u2019s wife on Facebook, where he had a very friendly exchange with her about the husband for whom we once were groupies\u2014if only for a short time. The Tuttles have a child now and Jason is doing some coaching at a sports center.\u00a0 We\u2019re sure that he\u2019s encouraging his young prot\u00e9g\u00e9s to hustle out there on the field, no matter their size or age.<\/p>\n When we\u2019re in his neck of the woods, we plan to look him up and ask him if it beats the heck out of Hamilton, Ohio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Our baseball trip in 2003 consisted of a tour around our home area, Cincinnati. That is, we traveled to northern Ohio, through Indiana, western Tennessee, northern Georgia and Alabama, north to Kentucky and back to Cincinnati. Well, not exactly, Cincinnati, … Continue reading