Cal Ripken Jr. strikes out in Globe

GLOBE — Forget Cooperstown. For residents of this central Arizona mining town, Cal Ripken’s longest streak lasted only two years.

And depending on whom you ask, it never should have started.

The local youth baseball league endorsed by the Hall of Famer is defunct, its pristine playing field abandoned after its construction just five seasons ago. Infighting, flagging parent interest and a dearth of incoming families needed to spark a revival have scuttled its chances.

Unless you’re a Schnauzer named Drifter or a Rottweiler mix named Bubblicious, that is.

“This park isn’t abandoned,” says Lisa Brazil, owner of The Drift Inn Saloon in Globe. “I know at least 20 people who take their dogs here.”

Brazil is asking city officials to consider turning the field Ripken’s charitable foundation built into a publicly funded dog park.

“I’ve got to tell you what,” Brazil adds, “the city worker who works on it, he does a good job of keeping it up.”

RIPKEN BALL TAKES OFF, CRASHES

Mickey Nye grew up in Scottsdale and played baseball at Camelback High School. In 1989, he came to Globe and bought the local Dairy Queen. When Nye first took over his new business, housing in Globe was so scarce that he commuted from nearby Safford.

Last year, he ran for mayor. He’s long been involved in community activities, ranging from youth sports to serving on the executive board of the Globe-Miami Chamber of Commerce.

Nye, 53, says he brought Ripken Baseball to Globe because of politics. He and other local coaches vehemently disagreed with a set of rules laid down by then-incoming Little League District Administrator Eugene Porto, another devoted community activist who served on the Miami City Council for six years.

“The coaches were upset because, in the past, the Globe-Miami community played under one program,” Nye says. “There wasn’t a split boundary where if you lived on this side of the line, you had to play over there. There was one organization. The new district commissioner said, ‘Well, we’re going to draw a line in the sand.’ And that didn’t sit well.”

Porto, 68, said he was just enforcing existing Little League rules that had been ignored for far too long.

“I’m an ex-military man, and you go by the rules whether you like ’em or not,” Porto says. “Years ago, Globe was one league and Miami was one league. Mr. Mickey Nye and his people wanted Globe and Miami to play together, and the people weren’t too happy with that because the association they were associated with didn’t want that.”

All politics aside, the response to the new league was immediate.

“There was an opportunity for this community to host a regional Cal Ripken tournament, and we did,” Nye says. “It was a 10-year-old[-player] tournament, with kids from Hawaii, Guam, California, Colorado, Nevada. They all came to Globe to play baseball. It was wall-to-wall people here for the tournament.”

Porto says the league failed because parents gave up when their kids grew up. The league also was too competitive for many of the town’s families.

“In Cal Ripken, you weren’t guaranteed playing time,” Porto says. “In Little League, until the senior leagues, it’s mandatory during their season that [children] go out for two innings and two times at bat. And in tournaments, they get one at-bat and three defensive outs. Sometimes [in Ripken ball] they’d go two, three, four games without playing.”

But Ripken ball helped the town make its mark. A Ripken team from Globe won the state tournament when the league was in its last year of existence. That same team also went to the regional tournament twice.

“Part of the problem with Cal Ripken, and even Babe Ruth, is that there’s a perception that it’s too competitive,” Nye says. “It doesn’t have to be.”

After the children were too old for the Ripken league, some played in the Babe Ruth league, some played in other leagues and some played other sports altogether.

“Ten years ago, we had a lot of kids, we had a lot of parent involvement, we had a lot of coaches who did this just for the fun of it,” says Nye, who still owns and operates his Dairy Queen. “As time has passed, parents have tended to take kids up to the ball field, drop them off, then come back in a few hours — not watch the games, not really participate.”

And some kids, Nye says, found more unsavory ways to spend their time.

“Meth,” he says, without hesitating. “The kids don’t have a lot of choices. Statistically, half the people in town probably would not pass a drug test. As an example, the Wal-Mart in Safford just tested 1,000 people. Only 300 of them passed the drug test for Wal-Mart. Our results wouldn’t be much different in this community.”

Globe, whose population hovers around 8,000, has about 33 percent fewer children today versus five years ago, Nye says.

“This community hasn’t grown,” he adds. “If you look to the statistics, the only reason Globe has grown is because of (land) annexation.”

LEAGUE TROUBLES SHOW TOWN STRUGGLES

But Globe’s problems transcend land use and Little League issues. Some residents say local families are increasingly lazy when it comes to carrying town life forward. They’re also becoming increasingly reliant on town officials for services – even daycare.

But Manoj Vyas is not a babysitter. He’s the city manager of Globe.

“There are a lot of good people, like Lisa [Brazil], like Mickey [Nye], yet at the same time there are a lot of people who are looking for us to baby-sit their kids day in and day out,” says Vyas, who came to Globe in 1998. Mimicking a parent, Vyas continued on, “‘Oh my god! Your program is only for five days a week? What about weekends?’”

Vyas, who previously worked in the Tucson area for Pima County, has more than 30 years of recreational management experience. He now manages Globe’s $26 million budget, $11.5 million of which is for the town’s operating expenses.

He spends about $600,000 per year on maintaining the town’s parks and recreation programs. That includes significant funding for an anti-drug and anti-alcohol youth leadership program.

“It’s something I enjoy tremendously,” Vyas says. “But I’m supposed to provide the police and the fire and the library and the senior center, the transportation and the flood control. Parks is one small part. There’s garbage pickup, water and sewers. We have a large umbrella of services.”

But the city can only do so much. The Ripken league failure is just a cycle, says one longtime resident and former local journalist. The league’s abandoned field is just a poster child for Globe’s deeper woes.

“It’s a mindset we’re seeing in just almost everything,” says Ellen Kretsch, who is now Globe-Miami’s tourism director. “The schools see it. They don’t have the parents coming in and working with their kid’s room. Used to be you’d go to your kid’s homeroom and help with stuff.

“Almost every group — Rotary, Friends of the Library — they’re all seeing the same people. Our Chamber board is serving on the Rotary board and they’re serving on this board. You’re just not seeing people come forward to volunteer like you used to. ‘Somebody else will do it, I’m too busy. I’ve got my own life and somebody else can take care of it.’

[“]If you send your kid to Little League,” she adds, “you’d better be willing to sell burros or coach or do whatever it is they need. I’m not saying there’s not involved parents, but there are a lot more who see it as a babysitting opportunity.”

Still, Nye remains optimistic for Globe’s chances. With copper prices rebounding and the local mining community again thriving, Globe soon could see an influx of people. Some may have children interested in youth baseball.

Nye says the Ripken league could be restarted and the league could again blossom, as it did after he first applied for the league charter.

But depending on future conversations between Vyas and Brazil, the most important rule enforced at the former Ripken field could involve Pooper Scoopers.

= = =

>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.