For all the possessions that a man of 73-years-old owns, Joe Kenyon’s San Benito Haybalers baseball cap might get used the most.
No longer the bright red of the Balers, the hat adorning the head of “Baseball Joe” blocks the afternoon sun at San Benito High during a baseball game and practice every week.
Kenyon is a baseball lifer, spending every day at a baseball diamond somewhere, regardless if it’s the Little League fields at Veterans Park or the Balers’ home.
He is outspoken and a welcomed part to the Balers’ field.
He doesn’t always filter his thoughts. He says what he says and he means it.
“I say what I think, you know?” he said with a laugh. “Something that’s not politically correct but, you know, people seem to like it because they know if they ask me a question they are going to get an answer. It might not be the one they want but it’s one that I have to give.”
But it doesn’t matter.
Each week, when Kenyon wanders around the backstop of the diamond, peering out to the field as the Balers play, he is stopped almost continuously. People of all ages — from kids to parents of the Baler players — stop to say hello and talk with the famous Baseball Joe
Except for Kenyon — despite coaching baseball in Hollister for nearly 20 years and attending nearly every San Benito High baseball game and practice over the past few years — the term Baseball Joe is a mystery to him.
“I don’t know,” he said of the name.
He was deemed Baseball Joe by his friend Randy Acosta early in the past decade when Acosta’s family was part of the town’s Little League baseball program. The name took off, and now many refer to Kenyon as only Baseball Joe.
“It means something to everybody,” he said.
That name perfectly defines Kenyon, whose love of the game has spanned 50 years.
Born in Missouri in 1939, Kenyon started coaching in 1959 in Redwood City, while in the army. Shipping between Redwood City and Vietnam, Kenyon fell in love with the idea of being a coach. In 1963, when he was discharged, he decided to stay involved with Little League baseball. He continued to do that until 2009 when he retired in Hollister.
It all came from the kids that he helped, he said.
“I see it in the kids,” Kenyon said. “I get enjoyment out of it watching them play. I try to help them if I can, you know. I do the best I can.”
For 50 years, his best worked for a legion of kids in Redwood City, San Jose, Mountain View and Hollister.
Kids call him granddad, and seek out to talk to him for just a short time. He is as familiar of a face to the baseball team as manager Billy Aviles.
But he isn’t a mascot — he is part of the team.
“The kids love him,” Aviles said. “Joe is a great guy and loves the game and the kids. Kids love him as well.”
The reason why people care for Kenyon is simple: When he coached, he made the sure the game was about the children having fun and not his ego.
“I was trying to teach them how to play the game right and how to get through life right,” Kenyon said. “Well, you know, I don’t know how to say it, no matter what you do, do it to the best of your ability. Even in baseball, if baseball isn’t for you find something else. Don’t do it. Don’t do it for your parents, do what you want to do.”
And it worked, former Little League coach Robert Fabing said.
Fabing and Kenyon coached together for nearly 10 years, after Fabing asked Kenyon to join him in the dugout.
“As I moved up the ranks into the different levels, Joe was always around,” Fabing said. “He saw every aspect of life in Little League.”
The partnership started when Kenyon talked to Fabing for yelling at kids in the dugout.
“I was running the district and he had a temper and he yelled,” Kenyon said. “When his oldest one was 8 or 9 years old, I got on his butt about yelling and screaming at the kids. So in the following year, he asked ‘why don’t you come back to coach and keep me calm.’ And it worked.”
Kenyon as a coach was an immediate success for Fabing — and the Little League Yankees.
“When a kid was talking with Baseball Joe, he always had a smile,” Fabing said.
Their baseball partnership ended in 2009, when Kenyon decided he should finally retire and become just a spectator with his wife Victoria.
Kenyon and Victoria shared their love of baseball, Kenyon said. Each year the two traveled to the regional championship in San Bernardino. Afterward, they flew to the Little League World Series in Willamsport.
Even without kids or grandkids playing in the games, the duo loved to watch the Little League Baseball.
“When you get interested in the kids, you stay interested,” Kenyon said. “And I don’t know, I get more enjoyment out of it than I think they do.”
He continued: “To me it’s the truest form of baseball when they are playing for the fun of it.”
The trips continued each year until Victoria passed three years ago. Since then, Kenyon still travels to San Bernardino in honor of her and the game he cares so much about.
“We had fun,” Kenyon said. “We always had fun.”
Today, baseball is a way for Kenyon to get out of the house and to watch the kids he coached grow up in front of him.
Because of that, everybody wins.
“The kids really respond to him,” Fabing said. “They respect him and what he is about. Everybody knows Baseball Joe.”
They care so much that during the Balers last regular season home game against Palma on Tuesday, Kenyon was honored.
Called “Coach Joe,” the 73-year-old baseball lifer threw out the game’s first pitch, earning hugs from his former players.
Baseball Joe might not coach the sport any longer, but he helps define baseball in Hollister.
