Goodbye Dick Radatz

Yesterday it was as if the world wanted to share the mood of those who attended Dick Radatz's memorial service. Along with family, former teammates and a representation of the North Shore Spirit - the affiliate where he was the pitching coach - were a handful of fans.

The whole ceremony was striking in its deeply personal and heartfelt simplicity. It was a moving ceremony with tributes from Don Gile, Johnny Pesky and his daughter, Leigh Radatz. She mentioned his knees giving him trouble, but she felt it was not from just carrying the weight of his body but also from carrying the weight of a heart made of gold. In that one statement, she fully painted the picture of the man many of us will only see as an aging baseball card from our childhood or an entry in something like the Baseball Encyclopedia. This is a man to whom his children paid a beautiful tribute. This is a man that made Johnny Pesky choke up and Don Gile wipe his eyes as they shared some of their memories.

There will be plenty of people out there that will pay tribute to the ball player, but I can't help but wish the people who paid tribute to the man drown out those voices to help all of us remember that beneath all the numbers and stats, the players we watch so closely are people first. In the end, what counts is not how many you struck out or how many homers you hit - it is how those who know you best remember you off the field.