Who are your Top 10 athletes of all time?
Beau Payne is an enigma surrounded by a question mark searching for a profound answer. A few years ago he was held captive by his personal demons, bombarded with What If, and drenched in melancholy. To his immense credit he seems to be walking a very straight line these days.
And Beau just may be the most gifted athlete I’ve ever coached.
Paul Gemino and I did private workouts with Beau when he was a teenager. The kid was 6-4, blitzed live heat edging into the mid 90’s, sliced a slider that slashed through Louisville sticks like a razor sharp machete, nailed the zone like a radar laser, and did it all with rhythm and tempo. What’s more, he dunked a basketball so easily he looked like MJ’s clone.
But Beau never played pro baseball.
Somewhere along the line some coach managed to get him sore, undoubtedly greedily obsessed with winning in the short run and to hell with the long run and a kid’s career. What else is new.
No, Long John isn’t one of the top 10. It’s just such a nice pic and you’ll understand in a few more paragraphs.
Beau played high school ball in Miami and the Marlins nabbed him in the 71st round in 1994 before the draft was limited to 50 slots. Round 71 is somewhere in the fog, an apparition working out on a backlot diamond about as obscure as an extra in a 1932 B movie. But, still, he was drafted and only a handful of people on this planet can say that.
But it was never to be.
I bring you this because I received this message on Facebook from one of my favorite players, Kyle Chalmers, who crushed atomic bombs for the North Shore Twins.
Beau Payne invited me to name my 10 favorite athletes of all time. One athlete per day for 10 days. This is day 7. No reviews. No explanations. Just a photo. Every day I will invite someone else to do the same. Today I nominate Dave Empey.
With this pic.
A picture is worth a thousand words but this one of Dempster is worth about 10,000. Notice how Ryan coils his front hip. This stores energy. When his stride foot plants his hips will uncoil and explode, an avalanche of rotational power.
Considering I check Facebook about as often as turtles fly, it’s a wonder I saw it at all. But the exchanges among Beau, Kyle, and Jack and Rob Marriott were pumped with the passion of True Baseball Believers who expressed love for everyone from Javy Baez to Shawon Dunston, from Manny Trillo to Jim Rice, Fred Lynn and Satchel Paige.
And this from Jack.
Kyle, you chose a Cubbie! No, not Ernie Banks, Billie Williams, Ron Santo, Fergie Jenkins or Ryne Sandberg. You chose the Sunshine Coast’s Greatest Athlete and West Van’s best player ever, Ryan Dempster. For trivia here’s something amazing, I watched Ryan score 12 goals in a soccer game for Gibson’s.
Twelve? Unless they were playing the Long John Silver impersonators that’s prodigious even for Dempster.
I’m not sure where this is headed but maybe Beau is on to something. Pick your Top 10 and send a pic each day to a friend. Pass it on. Just for the fun of sharing a conversation about something you love. The game called Baseball.
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