“This is like a fraternity, isn’t it? Like a brotherhood. You guys are pretty special.” Those words were spoken to me by my incredible wife Barbara Doyle not long after we tragically lost my college teammate, roommate, and close friend Bob “Radar” Ricker last September. Our large group of former SIUE Cougar Baseball players were all reaching out, making contact, sharing memories and trying to absorb and digest it all. It was horrible, but we had each other. We needed each other. I talked, texted, or emailed to many guys more in that next month than I had since school, especially James “Oscar” Noffke, who was closer to Radar than any of us. It’s a brotherhood, for sure. We kept each other grounded and sane.

I was never a member of an actual Greek fraternity in college. I didn’t need to be. I was a Cougar. I had a large group of brothers with me each year, and with the passing seasons the group changed a little, as guys graduated, but we never lost that feeling. There was only a little bit of hazing from the seniors when we were rookies on the varsity. It was required that you be tossed into the hotel pool, fully clothed, on the first night of your first road trip. And, on that road trip while traveling on the team bus, you had to stand in the aisle, drop your pants to your ankles, and sing your high school fight song at the top of your lungs. If you were lucky, the older guys only made you do it once. I passed that test before we pulled into Owensboro, Kentucky, and still don’t fully understand the “pants at your ankles” part of the equation, but it was clearly harmless. Other than that, it was nothing more than a group of brothers sharing a mission to play the game we all loved desperately, hoping to do well enough to feel we’d served each other, and the university, well.

I think Barbara began to understand the depth of it when our 1977 team was inducted into the SIUE Athletic Hall of Fame in 2016. Almost all of us gathered in Edwardsville, and on the first night our former star infielder Dave Schaake hosted us all at his marvelous home. It was 39 years after we played in the 1977 NCAA Div. II World Series as a group. It might as well have been just the week before. That’s what it felt like.

Baseball is behind us all now, and we aren’t narcissistic enough to look back at it as our “glory days” with a warped view of us being a lot better than we actually were, or more important than we were (we were only important to each other) or that those were the days that defined us as people. We’re realistic about that. We look back on it and think about the brotherhood at a phenomenal university. That’s all we really ever talk about. Not the games or the plays, but the camaraderie and the friendships. The goofy stuff. The bus rides. The lunch table. The parties. We were all extremely close back then. Just walking into Dave’s living room and seeing all those guys was heartwarming beyond measure. We’ll always be brothers.

After college, I was one of the fortunate few to experience pro ball. I’ve written extensively, over the years, about how baseball provides “instant friends” wherever you go, whatever level you’re playing at, no matter how well you do or how badly you struggle. You get the phone call that says “You need to be in Town X tomorrow, so go straight to the ballpark when you get there” and you just go. No questions asked. Sometimes it’s just across state lines, but sometimes across the country. And when you get there you are usually surrounded by a large group of complete strangers. They don’t stay strangers for long. They are instant friends. It’s a family. Also, after so many years of writing this blog I know I repeat myself on many subjects, and this is one of those. But the stories are so endless and there are always new details to add and odd coincidences to mention.

This photo is from the summer of 1978, taken in Paintsville, Kentucky (of course.) If after reading my first book “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” you never went to Google Maps or Mapquest to find Paintsville, you should still do that. Just finding it, on the far eastern side of Kentucky, in the coal mining hills made famous by country and bluegrass singers, just north of Pikeville, will give you a good idea of how special it was. Remote, small, but a community that embraced us as “their team” and “their boys” all summer. It was priceless.

The site of this photo is long-gone Johnson Central Park in Paintsville. Home of the Paintsville Hilanders of the Class-A Appalachian League. The precise spot is at my locker in the home clubhouse, under the grandstand on the third-base side. My teammate Pete Conaty is in the photo with me. Yes, that’s a hair dryer on the top shelf of my locker, tucked behind the soda can. I am posting this photo to illustrate one key thing. It’s a brotherhood. In pro ball, for most of the guys, you spend your time together and then go on to new adventures, but you’re brothers for life. Sometimes, though, your paths inexplicably cross again. It’s a mystery how that works.

It took me a while, but I finally just connected with Pete on social media, although only because his wife apparently set up a Facebook page for both of them. He was a great teammate, and a helluva stud pitcher. He signed with the Hilanders as an undrafted free agent, but once again that just proves that scouting and evaluating baseball players is an inexact science. Like many guys I played with on various teams, Pete should have been drafted by a Major League club. He was very good. The next year, he ventured out to Bakersfield, California to play again for the same manager we had in Paintsville. Another Hilander teammate, and great friend, Roy Dixon went there, too, after the Tigers let us both go. He went to Bakersfield and I went straight to Medford, Oregon to join the A’s organization. We just wanted to keep playing. The money didn’t matter. Get to Town X by tomorrow and go straight to the ballpark. You bet!

Some teams are closer and more bonded than others. The Paintsville Hilanders were one of those teams. I honestly do not recall a single moment of stress or incompatibility among the players. We rode the bus a ton. Home for four, on the road for four, over and over again, always on the same country highway (Route 23, for the record) down through Prestonsburg and Pikeville, just to get to Kingsport and the Tri-Cities, where the Kingsport Braves, Johnson City Cardinals, Bristol Tigers, and Elizabethton Twins all played. The Bluefield Orioles, over in West Virginia, were “outliers” just like us. They were on the bus all the time, too. We grew up a lot. We got better as players. We bonded. We were a family.

I’ve shown this photo a number of times over various social media platforms. This is the 1978 Paintsville Hilanders official team photo, taken at Johnson Central Park very early in the season. Hence, my dear friend, and fellow former SIUE Cougar, Stan Osterbur is not in it. He arrived a week or so later. Pete Conaty and I are both in the middle row. He is standing directly over the batboy in the blue uniform. I’m two people to the right in the photo, standing between Steve Locklear and Stan Hendrickson. I am surrounded by friends. Brothers. Family.

And a funny but noteworthy thing here: I’m usually considered “pretty tall” at a little over 6-foot-1. But, when surrounded by other professional athletes, I look pretty average.

Vince “The Bronze Fox” Bienek is at the far right of the back row, standing next to Buddy Slemp, who he went to college with at Oral Roberts, and I roomed with Buddy for the first half of the season in Paintsville. In the second row, on the far left, is our owner Paul Fyffe. A wonderful man by any measure of such things. Next to him, our manager Ron “Yank” Mihal. Next to him my friend Roy Dixon, who I’m still hoping to reconnect with after these 42 years, and another player who should have been drafted but wasn’t. Two players to the right of Roy is Dan O’Connor who we all called OC. Buddy, OC, and I (all the property of the Tigers who had collectively been optioned to Paintsville) shared an upstairs apartment above an elderly woman’s house, until Buddy let the tub overflow (for about an hour) one day. Anyone who has read “Bats, Balls, & Burnouts” likely remembers that story. We were summarily dismissed as rental residents. Coincidentally, because baseball is full of such coincidences, Roy, OC, and I were all in Lakeland, Florida the next year, playing for the Tigers in the much more stressful “advanced” Class-A Florida State League, playing with or against future big leaguers every day. We roomed together there. None of us made it to the promised land, but we had the time of our lives.

That Hilander team was, quite literally, as low as you could go in professional minor league ball. A co-op team made up of free agents and some affiliated players (like me) from different organizations. Entry level. Rookie ball. $500 per month. It’s amazing that two of these guys made it to the big leagues. That’s defying the odds any way you look at it. On the far right in the second row is our trainer. I don’t remember his name, but I guarantee we just called him “Doc” anyway. Two players to the left is Kevin Hickey, who signed with the White Sox out of a tryout camp and was then loaned to Paintsville like many of us were. Kevin had a stellar big league career in Chicago and Baltimore, as a hard-throwing lefty reliever. (HINT: How do you get signed out of a cattle-call tryout camp as a pitcher? A) Throw really hard. B) Be left-handed. You’re welcome.) In the back row, standing right in the middle above me and Steve Locklear, is burly catcher Chino Cadahia. He never played in the majors, but he made it there as a coach for a couple of teams, after a long minor league career in the Twins organization.  Vince Bienek should’ve and probably would’ve played in the big leagues had he not later torn up an ankle in Double-A. He was the best player on this team, and a marvelous teammate. Vince and I both feel fortunate to have reconnected these days. Social media can be truly awful, in many ways, but it also provides these connections. They are priceless. In the top row, right behind OC and Pete, is Eddie Gates. Yep, Eddie “Boxhead” Gates of “Bats, Balls & Burnouts” fame. We’re Facebook friends, too.

It was a season of nonstop baseball I will never forget. And I’ve never forgotten the charm and friendliness of Paintsville. Great people.

Now for the uncanny coincidence. In 1987 I was living in Reston, Virginia in the Washington DC metro area, working for my brother Del at his sports marketing agency, and as my first spring there approached I was itching to play ball again. I contacted the head coach at George Mason University, in nearby Fairfax, and told him who I was. I asked him if he knew of any good semipro teams in the area. Good teams. Competitive teams full of ex-pros or college players. He steered me toward a team in Fairfax made up of just such players. I called the manager, Woody Harris, and he let me come to their first spring practice. After that, he offered me a spot on the roster.

This photo is of that Fairfax team. We were pretty good. Probably just as good as any of the Sauget Wizards teams I played on before and after my escapades in DC. Recognize me? I’m in the back row, fourth from the right. If you look two guys to the left of me, in this photo, you will see Pete Conaty, towering above the other guys in the back. Somehow, some way, through sheer love of the game, persistence, and amazing coincidence, these two Hilanders ended up on another team together, playing for free this time in another part of the country, nine years after our summer in Paintsville. And Pete was still very good. All of these guys were good.

I walked onto that practice field that first day knowing no one. I spent the summer playing with this talented, dedicated, and hilarious group of guys and was one of them within days. What a great experience. What great brothers. And were we any good? We won about everything we could possibly win, including a game over the Korean National Team (in which the new guy went deep) and somehow won a major tournament that made us Eastern Seaboard Champions. I’m friends on Facebook with Mark Siciliano (front row, third from the right) and now with Pete Conaty. Brothers.

Side note: At Fairfax we beat the Korean National Team at the University of Maryland’s stadium and I went deep. Way deep. Drop the bat and watch it fly deep. When I returned to St. Louis and rejoined the Sauget team, we beat the USA National Team down near Memphis, at their beautiful stadium in Millington, Tenn. and I went deep. Way deep. Over the center field wall deep. I’m pretty sure I’m the only former SIUE Cougar, or Paintsville Hilander, or Lakeland Tiger, or Medford A’s player (not to mention Sauget and Fairfax) to be 2-0 against major national teams with two bombs. You take those career highlights where you can get ’em.

I know how fortunate I am to have done all this. Almost every little boy plays Little League ball (or at least they did when I was young.) Only a few then play for their high school teams. Of that group, only a few (if any at all) go on to play college ball at any level, much less get a full scholarship at a fabulous school like SIUE. As good as we collectively were back then, making two trips to the NCAA Div. II World Series during my time with the Cougars, only a few of us ever signed professional contracts and then got to know how amazing that experience could be. And then, after pro ball when jobs and life allowed it a few years later, I got to experience the joy of playing for the Sauget Wizards (just across the Mississippi from the Gateway Arch) and for one year with Fairfax, before I moved back to St. Louis to complete my Sauget career with a bunch of guys who loved the game and each other. “Fortunate” doesn’t come close to describing it. It’s a brotherhood. It’s a fraternity. It’s a shared experience that none of us will ever forget and all of us will always be thankful for. I wouldn’t trade a minute of it for anything.

Here at the Wilber/Doyle Ranch, we celebrated Barbara’s birthday yesterday. With all that’s going on in the world right now, it just didn’t seem right to go overboard and spend a ton of money on diamond earrings, or a black pearl bracelet, or anything else expensive and ostentatious. We also usually go out for a big night on the town at a fabulous restaurant, but you can’t do that these days. So I went for originality, and Barbara is still talking about how it was one of her favorite birthdays ever. I collected a series of videos, shot by local Twin Cities sports celebrities, ranging from former Twins stars to TV personalities, and one former Minnesota Wild hockey player. They were all gracious and tremendous, sending personal “Happy Birthday” greetings to Barbara, and including specific little facts I’d told them about beforehand. She was over the moon with those, and quite touched. Then I gave her the one physical present I had purchased for her.

I found a company on Facebook called Turned Yellow, and I knew I had to do this. You send them a personal photo and can then either use one of their standard backgrounds, like the couch in The Simpsons living room or in front of The Simpsons house, or you can send them photos of what you’d like to be in front of. Then they turn you into this. As if you’re on The Simpsons. I chose a photo of us in our Twins gear, taken at a game a few years back (hence, neither one of us is wearing glasses) and a few optional backgrounds using photos I had taken at Target Field. My gosh, the artist NAILED IT. Barbara loved it. And I love her. We’re doing pretty well through all this quarantine stuff. We make a good team. I know a thing or two about being a good teammate and what makes a good team.

Barbara also heard from our friend Kelsey, who is the daughter of our dear friends Scott and Barb from the old neighborhood, and she learned that Kelsey is doing a little side-project making custom door mats for anyone’s front porch. We had to have one!

It’s pretty priceless, as you can see in today’s final photo. And the pillow on the chair, made by longtime blog reader Ruth, is also priceless.

So, that’s it for another week. We’re staying healthy, wearing our masks in public, washing our hands often and wiping with sanitizer as well. We’re going to get through this. I’m not sure what we considered “normal” will ever seem that way again, but we’re going to get through it.

As always, my lone request at the bottom of every blog is regarding that pesky “Like” button at the top. If that seems like an apt description of what you thought of this bit of rambling, please feel free to click on it.

And remember: Teamwork makes the dream work.  Be a good teammate.

And to all my former teammates, be careful, stay safe, and take care. We’re all brothers. Always will be.

See ya next week.

Bob Wilber, at your service and very thankful for all these priceless memories.