Perrysburg High School baseball player Ryan Rettig (left) and Mayor Tom Mackin (right) present the key to the city of Perrysburg native and Major League Baseball Hall of Famer Jim Leyland at the Commodore Schoolyard Saturday. (Lee Welch | Sentinel-Tribune)
PERRYSBURG — As manager, Perrysburg native Jim Leyland led his Florida Marlins to a Major League Baseball World Series championship in seven games over the Cleveland Indians in 1997.
Not everyone knew that Leyland had grown up an Indians fan, so while it broke the heart of some of his boyhood friends who were also Indians fans, he had to do his job.
“I still was pulling for him,” said his boyhood friend Bill Dhondt, also a Cleveland fan. “As a matter of fact I wished him the best of luck, and I even said, ‘Jimbo, it breaks my heart that the Indians are in there but I wish you all the luck in the world,’ and he did. He pulled it off.”
Leyland managed Pittsburgh, Florida, Colorado and Detroit from 1986 to 2013 and was inducted into the MLB Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York on July 21 along with players voted in by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America.
Leyland won three Manager of the Year awards, had a 1,769-1,728 career record as a manager and was the manager of the U.S. Olympic team in 2017 when the Americans won their only World Baseball Classic.
Leyland’s players included Barry Bonds, Gary Sheffield, Larry Walker, Miguel Cabrera, Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer.
On Friday night, Leyland was back in Perrysburg to watch the Yellow Jackets’ Homecoming football victory over Clay at Steinecker Stadium, and on Saturday, he was in front of the community as grand marshal for the Homecoming parade. After the parade, Leyland had lunch with the Perrysburg High School baseball team.
On Saturday afternoon on the grounds of the Commodore Schoolyard, he received a proclamation from Perrysburg Mayor Tom Mackin announcing Jim Leyland Day.
Leyland also received the keys to the city for the second time (first time was in the 1990s), and elected officials brought proclamations from the Ohio Statehouse and Washington, D.C.
“It’s been a great summer, obviously — the hall of fame, retirement of the number in Detroit, the Pittsburgh Pirate hall of fame, but I can tell you this, there is nothing like being honored in your hometown,” Leyland said.
“It’s special. This will always be my birthplace. This will always be my hometown. I see a lot of friends from way back, It is always great to be back. I don’t get back as much as I used to. I still have family here.”
From the backyard to Majors
Leyland not only went to high school at the historic building on the grounds of the Commodore Schoolyard, graduating in 1962, but he grew up just a couple blocks away on Indiana Avenue. The house, which was located next to where the municipal building is now, has been razed.
Dhondt, who graduated from PHS in 1959, one year behind Leyland’s brother Bill, can tell you what it was like in that neighborhood in the 1950s.
“I grew up with the family,” Dhondt said. “Their dad (Jim Leyland) was like a stepfather to me because my father had passed away when I was only 10 years old. I was at their house an awful lot. Their dad was a semipro baseball player, and he was very good at it
“He’d take us in the backyard, and he’d be hitting fungos and ground balls to us and we’d be throwing them back. We’d do that for hours and hours. We were very close. I got to know the family. They were very nice to me all the time.”
Dhondt says you could tell Leyland was going to be a special kind of athlete even when he was young, even though he did not have the success playing at the Major League level as he did coaching and managing.
“He was a normal boy, a normal guy growing up. He liked to have fun,” Dhondt said. “Probably like all of us, he had a tendency to get in trouble a little bit, nothing serious. He was always an athlete, all the time.
“I can remember him being the batboy for the Perrysburg Merchants (Toledo Amateur Baseball Federation) baseball team, and from that time he just loved baseball all the way through his life.”
Leyland was a minor league catcher and occasional third baseman in the Tigers organization from 1965-70, never rising above Double-A and finishing with a .222 batting average, four homers and 102 RBIs.
“Being not a very good player myself, I realized how hard it was to play the game,” he said.
Leyland coached in the Tigers minor league system, then started managing with Bristol of the Appalachian Rookie League in 1971. After 11 seasons as a minor league manager, he left the Tigers to serve as Tony La Russa’s third base coach with the Chicago White Sox from 1982-85, then embarked on a major league managerial career that saw him take over the Pirates from 1986-96.
Pittsburgh got within one out of a World Series trip in 1992 before Francisco Cabrera’s two-run single in Game 7 won the NL pennant for Atlanta. The Pirates sank from there following the departures of Bonds and ace pitcher Doug Drabek as free agents, and Leyland left after Pittsburgh’s fourth straight losing season in 1996. Five days following his last game, he chose the Marlins over the White Sox, Red Sox and Angels.
Florida won the title the next year in the franchise’s fifth season, the youngest expansion team to earn a championship at the time. But the Marlins sold off veterans and tumbled to 54-108 in 1998, and Leyland left for the Rockies. He quit after one season, saying he lacked the needed passion, and worked as a scout for the St. Louis Cardinals.
He replaced Alan Trammell as Tigers manager ahead of the 2006 season and stayed through 2013, taking Detroit to two World Series appearances.
But it was obvious at the Commodore Schoolyard, even after he received countless proclamations, “keys,” and even a Perrysburg High baseball jersey with his number 62 embroidered on it that was presented by current PHS player Ryan Rettig, where his heart was when he was surrounded by friends and family afterward.
“While Jim’s name is synonymous with baseball greatness, it is his connection with our community that resonates the most with us today,” Perrysburg School Superintendent Tom Hosler said. “The Leyland family has deep roots in this town and Jim has never forgotten where he came from.
“Whether it’s through his hall of fame career, leading Major League baseball teams to countless wins and pennants and the ultimate prize, a World Series title in 1997, or simply returning home to reconnect with family and friends, Jim has always been proud to be a Perrysburg Yellow Jacket.”
