Due to weather complications and the flu pandemic of 2018, pictures, interviews and rosters were done later than what our deadlines would allow and the decision was made for the preview to come out in next week’s edition of The Star-
Herald. I was planning on re-running a story about my father that I wrote in 2014, just a couple of months after he passed, to kick off the preview, but felt it would be more relevant this week due to games starting on Friday. Jack Beall was/is my inspiration and the following story is just a little snippet of why he was.
As baseball season approaches, I am met with a heavy heart. This was my father’s favorite time of year and he passed his love and passion for the game down to me. We could spend hours discussing strategies for a future game or replaying games that we had been a part of way back in the 80s and early 90s. He loved coaching the game and would speak with pride about summer league championships and dark horse players that he coached into all-stars.
My daddy was the best in the world in taking that kid nobody would give a chance and making them a base stealing threat or a “junk ball” pitcher. He just had a knack for discovering hidden attributes in those unwanted players that no other coaches would bother to even look for. He had a baseball mind that could go back decades. He would tell me stories about Ted Williams and my namesake, Stan Musial, that I could listen to over and over again––he would actually tell them over and over again, even if I did not request it. He ingrained in me my love for the Atlanta Braves by telling me everything about the players that I needed to know. Dale Murphy was our favorite player of all time, but we also had favorites such as Bob Horner, Claudell Washington, Rafael Ramirez, Bruce Benedict, Steve Bedrosian, Glenn Hubbard and Phil Neikro that he took our family to see many times.
He got as much thrill at watching my brothers and I lose our breath looking at the vastness of Fulton County Stadium as he did watching an extra inning game. I am really going to miss all of the road trips that big ol’ Copiah County boy and I took. The stuff he told me about pretty much everything, I will cherish forever. I would still ask him questions like I did when I was little, and he enjoyed answering every one of them in his on, sarcastic little way. He loved to travel to games far away and was always excited to see a sports venue for the first time that he had never seen before. He would go with me to many of the games that I covered, and I am not quite sure how I will handle not having that to look forward to. My father loved to travel the back roads as an alternative route because that was just the way he was wired. He never conformed to whatever was going on around him; he just did his own thing.
I will admit it, I took him for granted because I never thought I would ever have to say goodbye to my first-ever and only hero…but I did on December 7. I do rest assured in the fact that I will see him again soon, but I still miss him more than I could ever say. My daddy was that calming presence that I needed every so often, and his dry wit is something I could never duplicate. He thought in such a logical, no-nonsense kind of way that I so admired and wished I could replicate. Looking back over everything that my father has done for me overwhelms my mind. I strive to be just like that to my three sons and I am so thankful to God above for giving me such a wonderful father and role model. He was the best! I feel privileged, grateful, extremely blessed and just flat out honored that he shared his life with me, sacrificing so much to make everything as perfect as he could for us. His love for sports definitely rubbed off on me, and I consider that a gift as well. When that familiar order of “play ball!” is uttered across many a field in Mississippi this week, my eyes will go misty. It just won’t be right, and my heart will be heavy because Jack Beall has never missed a game.
