Although he taught me the finer points of baseball, I never called him Coach. He was always Mr. Al. I think that’s what he preferred, and it seemed to fit -- at once respectful and affectionate. 

When I landed on his Little League team in 1956, he already was on his way to becoming a local legend, having begun coaching years earlier when his only son Allen played.  Most dads coach only as long as their children are involved, but not Mr. Al. He loved the game and the kids, and his tenure as a coach spanned two decades and hundreds of young boys -- including my two younger brothers and me. Most would never forget him.

Mr. Al was a letter carrier, and I always thought that explained his quick smile and easy familiarity. Our town was an isolated, rural outpost, and the mail helped connect us to the outside world. 

My family had a mailbox at the post office, and I checked it every day. I would first peek through the glass door to see if anything was there. Then, I would slowly turn the dial to unlock the box -- prolonging the anticipation because in that moment anything was still possible. 

Usually, the haul was commonplace -- bills and solicitations -- but occasionally I found magic equal to my imagination. Few things compared with running home clutching the Holy Grail of post-war childhood -- the Christmas edition of the Sears catalog. 

Play, and everything else, came to a stop. My siblings and I would huddle on the floor in a tight circle, the bulky wish book spread out in the middle, and dream of things that we couldn’t have. I couldn't think of anyone more suited than Mr. Al for delivering dreams.

Mr. Al lived in a neat brick ranch house just behind the school and less than a block from the baseball field. I always thought it was a perfect location. 

If something needed doing, Mr. Al quietly pitched in. He was a fixture in the Quarterback Club and every fall at Homecoming cooked the best Brunswick stew anyone could remember tasting.

Cooking the stew was quite a production, and he would take off work to oversee the project. The stew was part of an annual fundraiser that made thousands of dollars for the school. (The recipe was a carefully-guarded secret, and before he died, Mr. Al passed it along to Jasper Best, a classmate and best friend of his son -- thus insuring that the best Brunswick stew in the south would remain a local tradition.)

Mr. Al was married to one of the most gracious women I ever met, and their two children -- a boy and a girl -- seemed almost perfect. The daughter, pretty and vivacious, was a cheerleader and homecoming queen, and the son, handsome and athletic, anchored the football team's offensive line at center.  He was the consummate boy-next-door.

If all this sounds too idyllic, it was. I was eleven in the summer of 1957 and played shortstop for Mr. Al. In the dog days of August, after the season had ended, Mr. Al faced every parent’s greatest fear -- the death of a child. His son, who would leave soon for college, was killed in a tragic accident. The town mourned as one. Mr. Al was devastated.  Many wondered how he would manage.

But, he did. He honored his son by continuing to serve the youth of the community. Year after year, Mr. Al introduced another group of young boys to the mysteries and joys of America’s pastime. And, he did it with the same mixture of passion and compassion that I remembered. I’m not sure that he ever stopped mourning, but he hid it from the boys, and he never seemed happier than when he was coaching.

I played for Mr. Al for the last time the following summer. After that, I moved up to Pony League, but Mr. Al would always be the standard by which I measured coaches. Over time, he became an institution and a few years before his death, the town named the high school baseball field in his son’s honor.
 
Mr. Al seemed to take a particular interest in my younger brother Alan. I think that Alan reminded him of his own son and not just because they shared a name -- even if spelled differently. Mr. Al nicknamed Alan “Little Yogi” after Yogi Berra, and it stuck. Eventually we dropped the “Little” but he remained Yogi until his untimely death at twenty-one in a motorcycle accident.  

Mr. Al was one of the first to come to the house to pay his respects, and try as he might, he couldn’t fight back the tears. Mr. Al lived another quarter-century after my brother’s death, but I never saw him when he didn’t mention “Little Yogi.”   
 
Years later, when I coached my son’s baseball teams, I thought a lot about Mr. Al and how he went about things. I hope that I managed to do a fraction of the good that he did over the years. 

In 1995, I wrote a juvenile novel about a team of Little Leaguers, and the next time I visited my parents -- and my old hometown -- I took a copy to Mr. Al. Inside I had written a short note:  “For my first and best coach.”  His wife told me later that it had meant a lot to him. Not as much, I’m sure, as he meant to a generation of young boys.