The Major-Leaguer Just Down The Street

I've had a few professional athletes as neighbors. One lived across the street while I was still covering the team. Very nice guy, had his father living with him and his father would come over all the time and chat with me while I was doing yardwork.

A NFL exec, who is now a GM, used to live around the corner from me. I believe his house is still on the market after more than a year. He'd show up at block parties occasionally. My oldest son and his son were in the same day care.

 

That's funny. My wife is related (distant relative) to Mikan, but her parents went to his funeral a several years back. I didn't know they were related until he died.

 

Because it could lead to posters being outed?

 

I had three guys who made the NFL on my high school team. One played for more than a decade. Another lasted five years in the league. The other was invited to training camp, but was cut after a couple preseason games.

I played youth baseball with two guys (same team) one was a first round baseball pick who had a very respectable, long career, and another who was a NFL first-round pick and most of you would laugh your asses off if I told you who it was.

 

My grandfather coached a handful of guys in high school who went on to become major league players, including Bobby Thomson. It wasn't unusual to go to my grandfather's house back in the '60s and early '70s and find Thomson sitting in the living room bullshitting with him. They played poker on Friday nights, too.

I also played baseball in the same over-30 league with Phil Linz about 15 years ago.

 

Troy Glaus lived a couple of blocks away during his 2002 heyday.

An Anaheim Duck lives a couple of blocks in the other direction; not sure who, but he has a practice rink and lots of nice cars and once had a vote for me for All-Star sign out front.

 

Yes, because I'm going to call up Tom Grieve and find out which sportswriter he once played golf with ...

 

My cousin has a pool business in the OC and runs into a lot of Ducks - and other athletes - either on the job or at various bars and restaurants near his place.

 

Since Moddy wants names, their dads were Ron Fairley, Ron Perranoski, Barry Latman and Ron Brand.

Later had friends who were once neighbors of Perranoski and they'd tell stories about street parties with guests such as Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale.

 

I don't care about me being outed, but I'm not going name my neighbor because he might be embarrassed by my talking about him, and his reputation as a player isn't remotely why I started this.

And to clarify ... I didn't play golf with Tom Grieve ... I was practicing right next to him while he was getting a lesson and I recognized the voice.

 

I used to play ping pong with Johnny Bench.

 

A name-dropping thread for sports journalists. How ... right.