Original Baltimore Orioles team member Sam Mele (Photo courtesy Baltimore Orioles)

Remembering the late Sam Mele, one of the original Orioles and manager of the ’65 Twins.

This one is no “Tuesdays with Morrie,” Mitch Albom’s treatise on a young man reconnecting on weekly visits with his dying professor to learn about life. The friendship between myself and Sam Mele, the former Minnesota Twins manager who passed away at 95 on May 1 in Quincy, Mass., spanned more than 30 years. But it was a much simpler story about two people with a passion for baseball and a good laugh. Of course we met at a baseball stadium, Memorial Stadium, in the early ’80s.

Back then, I owned season tickets about 12 rows behind home plate. Over the years there, I developed many important baseball relationships with scouts too numerous to mention. But there was something that immediately connected me to Sam. He had that voice, as comfortable as an old easy chair, probably from years of smoking. I used to badger Sam with questions, trying to learn from someone who’d managed 960 major league games and scouted another 20,000 or so.

Sam used to joke that in 1965, if not for one more Jewish holiday, he would’ve been a World Series-winning manager. He was, of course, alluding to the fact that the Dodgers’ Sandy Koufax refused to pitch the opening game of what would be an exciting and nail-biting seven-game series because of his observance of Yom Kippur. Yet, as unimaginable as it seems, Koufax still started three games that series, shutting out the Twins in game five and on only two days rest again in game seven.

Starting on two days rest had never been done before, so you’ll pardon Sam his lament at not having one more Jewish holiday to have kept Koufax out of action one more time.

Sam Mele
The Oriole and former Minnesota Twins manager Sam Mele passed away at 95 on May 1 in Quincy, Mass.

There are connections to Baltimore and Mele that go way back. Going into this season, Sam was one of four living players who were in the modern Orioles first-ever opening day lineup. With Sam now gone, only starting pitcher Don Larsen, outfielder Gil Coan and infielder Billy Hunter are alive from that game in Detroit on April 13, 1954.

Sam managed the Twins from midway through the 1961 season until midway through the 1967 season. After settling down in Quincy, he became good friends with Tom Yawkey, the late owner of the Boston Red Sox, who promised him a lifetime job with his team. After being let go by the Twins 50 games into that ‘67 season, Sam took Yawkey up on his offer.

There, Sam would remain from 1968 until the mid-‘90s when he retired. Since his retirement, we saw each other only once — and that was thanks to my wife, Jayne. She hadn’t met Sam but was charmed by their many long phone conversations, when I would have to break in to get some baseball talk-time. He loved to talk stocks with anyone who’d listen; Jayne and Sam could talk about their mutual interest.

Around 2008, Jayne asked me when was the last time I’d seen Sam. When I told her it had been the mid-’90s, she persuaded me to visit him. His wife was away that weekend, and we had a blast. I only wish I’d done it a couple more times.

Connie Mele passed away about four years ago, and Sam’s health began to deteriorate only the way it can when you pass 90. The macular degeneration took away his ability to see games on TV. Sam’s comfortable voice changed and became high-pitched and hard to make out. But we managed as best we could.

One of my fondest memories was spring training 2016 in Fort Myers, Fla. As I was entering the media gate, there was Tony Oliva, one of Sam’s greatest players, in a Twins uniform. I walked over, introduced myself and said, “Tony, if I can get Sam Mele on the phone, would you like to talk to him?” His eyes lit up and in his Cuban accent, he said, “Sure.”

As the phone rang, I said to myself, “Sam, pick up the phone.” A caretaker answered and put Sam on the line. I said, “Sam, I have somebody here who wants to talk to you.” Oliva smiled ear-to-ear for nearly 10 minutes as the two of them chatted like it’d been a season since they’d last talked. Tony said he had to go and handed me the phone. Sam said, “Stan, thanks for doing that. You don’t know what it meant to me.”

I did know. And I was happy to have done that for my friend.

Stan “The Fan” Charles is founder and publisher of PressBox.

Photos courtesy of the Baltimore Orioles

 

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