Here’s an excerpt from Mike Reuther’s book, Baseball Dreams, Fishing Magic.
To really understand this story, I guess you have to start at the end. For it was on a particular Labor Day Weekend, after we’d won our amateur adult baseball team tournament, that I first shared my story about Sir Jon. Up until then, I had never talked about Sir Jon, a kind of mythical figure from my days spent on trout streams, not even with my friend Hal, who’d been with me on one or two occasions when Sir Jon had showed up while we were fishing. Most people had never even heard of Sir Jon, and he remained an elusive kind of creature. It was as if he didn’t exist. It was Sir Jon, you might say, who made me finally realize what’s important, even if there were many other people who would play a big part in shaping me and my philosophy about life.
So there I was, Nick Grimes, still at the ball field long after most of my teammates had gone. I guess I was basking in my glory at the advanced baseball age of forty-five, the winning pitcher in the championship game. Somehow, my assortment of deceptive slow curves and changeups mixed in with an occasional fastball had baffled the opposing hitters. The only other person left was my young teammate, a kid named Leggett, who’d had a big day at the plate, going four for four with a couple of home runs. He’d been a high school star but had decided against going to college and playing ball. Some people said he was crazy for not pursuing baseball more seriously. He certainly had the tools for turning professional, and he was tall and lanky with a perfect kind of baseball body that the scouts loved. But I could tell he didn’t have the passion for the game. “I like hitting home runs,” he told me one day. “But the rest of the game … It pretty much bores me.”
What Leggett really enjoyed was trout fishing, and he never missed a chance to query me about my own experiences fishing and guiding anglers around central Pennsylvania. I was sitting in the small grandstands behind home plate when Leggett plopped down beside me on one of the weathered, wood planks.
“I don’t know if I’m going to play next year,” he said.
“Oh. Getting too old?” I looked at him and smiled.
“Ah … It’s just not that fun,” he said.
“Even on days like today … when you blasted a couple of home runs and led your team to victory?”
“It’s cool but …”
“But what?”
“It’s the same old shit. Tomorrow, I’ll go to work at the mall and put in my eight hours. Then back to work the next day and on and on it goes.”
“Yeah. I know how that is.”
“I’ve been out of high school two years now,” he said. “My girlfriend wants to move things along. Know what I mean?”
“You mean, get married?”
Leggett shrugged. “Sure. Have a kid, start a family. The whole deal. I won’t have time for this.”
“Okay.”
“There’s gotta be more to life. Ya know?” He looked at me and then down at the ground.
“Like fishing?”
Leggett grinned. “Now that I can relate to.”
“Sure. Fishing is great.”
“Nothing like it,” he said.
“So. Go fishing.”
“I do man. Every chance I get. But it doesn’t change anything.”
“No, I suppose it doesn’t.”
“Like I said, I’m still stuck in that job and probably headed to the same old life everyone else has.”
“I guess it comes down to finding your passion.”
Leggett looked at me and then out at the field. The sun was low now and the trees along the first base line, some of which were just beginning to show their fall colors, were throwing long shadows across the green grass of the infield.
“You probably think I’m nuts for not taking one of those baseball scholarships a couple of years ago.” Leggett’s eyes narrowed in on me from beneath his baseball cap.
“What can I say? It was your decision.”
“Maybe I should have gone to school,” he said.
“Yeah … maybe.”
Leggett threw up his hands. “Aw hell … sometimes I drive myself crazy. Sometimes I think I am crazy.”
“Like I said, follow your passion.”
“Yeah … well. What the hell is my passion? Just tell me Grimes. What is it?”
“That’s for you to find out.”
We both sat there for a few moments staring out at the field.
“Sir Jon,” I said.
“What?” Leggett asked.
“Sir Jon. He’s this crazy mountain man who lives by himself not too far from here. You could become another Sir Jon.”
“And why would I become another Sir Jon?”
“He’s doing what he wants. He’s probably the most incredible fly fisherman I’ve ever seen.”
“Sir Jon?” Leggett looked at me with both suspicion and interest as if I’d just told him the lottery ticket he’d bought that morning had turned up a winner.
“A legend. But more importantly, a student of life.”
I didn’t know if I had gotten through to Leggett, a talented ballplayer who didn’t really like the game of baseball all that much, a kid who had spurned college scholarship offers to play. Leggett was like so many other kids on the verge of manhood, a bit lost but not hopeless, wondering what the hell he was going to be doing with his life for the next fifty years.
My reference to Sir Jon seemed to resonate with him, however. A hermit who’d given up a career to go live in the mountains and spend a lot of his time trout fishing seemed to appeal to Leggett.
“Sounds like the dude is doing what he wants to do,” Leggett said. “That’s cool.”
“It is cool.” I said.
“Yeah,” Leggett said.
He turned to me then. “Thanks man.”
“For what?”
“For giving me something to think about.”
He picked up his baseball bag and stuck out his hand.
“It’s been real,” he said.
“See you next season?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I doubt it. I think I’m done with baseball.” He took one last look out at the field. It was close to dusk by now, and the strange night calls of birds could be heard.
“Maybe I’ll look up that Sir Jon dude,” he said.
“Good luck,” I said.
“Yeah man.” He gave me a thumbs-up and headed across the field for his car parked out behind the right field fence. I watched his figure grow smaller and smaller in the fading light as he made his way across the outfield grass. And then, the engine of his car started up, and he was gone.
Sir Jon is a big part of this story I’m telling as is Leggett, even if you won’t read a whole lot about them. Keep their names in mind as you read on. Of course, the story is also about me, Nick Grimes.
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