The Don of Baseball

by Bill Bozman

He was a part of professional baseball from the 1930s into the 1990s as player, coach, manager and scout. To say Don Gutteridge was a "baseball man" would be an extreme understatement. He played in 2 World Series' (1944 & 1946) and teamed with such great players as Pepper Martin, Dizzy Dean and Ted Williams to name just a few. I could go on and on about Don's exploits in baseball, enough to write a book or two which we did. Instead of that I chose to write a short piece about the Don Gutteridge I knew.

I've known Don for over 10 years, and consider myself very fortunate to have had him as my friend. Over the years we (Ronnie Joyner and Steve Bozman) visited Don a few times in his life long home of Pittsburg, Kansas. We would always try to stay at a hotel as we were afraid it would be a burden for Don and Helen to have us at their home. This was especially true the last time we were there as Don was caring for Helen, his wife of over 70 years. Don always insisted we stay with him, even when there was three of us on the trip. He was as gracious a host as one could ever hope for.

Upon arrival to the Gutteridge home, Don would great you with his big smile and a hug - you always felt so welcome in their home. Once he even had a "Welcome" cake beautifully displayed on the kitchen table. The man was simply amazing to me. To add to this, Don always insisted on cooking one of his fabulous steak dinners on the grill. It was a real treat that I will never forget. Ronnie and I would laugh when we thought just how lucky we were. It was not that long ago that we were thrilled to get a short note in the mail from a former big league player. Now we were hanging out and enjoying terrific home cooked meals they prepared for us - it didn't get much better than that!

Don and Helen lived in a modest home in a quiet neighborhood in Pittsburg. He would often tell me how much he enjoyed his neighbors and just how helpful many were to him. Inside their house I will always remember the clocks. They had collected clocks (mostly the vintage wooden wall variety) for years and they hung all around their home, beautifully decorating many of the rooms. Some would still chime at the top and bottom of the hour. Don had a small baseball room with some great pictures and few selected baseball items he had kept or collected. That's where many of our baseball talks were held while compiling the stories for his books. He still received multiple autograph requests weekly and answered every one - he thought it was only proper to respond. That was Don.

Though we made a couple of trips there to work on stories for the book, we often got off the track and ended up watching television in the living room or hopping in the car for a ride into town to eat at one of his favorite restaurants. When you walked into a restaurant with Don Gutteridge in downtown Pittsburg, Kansas, nearly everyone knew Don and chat for a second. As they walked past your table it would be, "Hi Don", one after the other. It was great! And it was easy to tell that Don loved it and seldom missed the chance to chat with friends.

Visits with Don would always include lots of great baseball stories from the earlier years of baseball many of us find so interesting. In addition to his days in the game he always enjoyed talking about today's game as well as football and basketball. And as far as the level - Don was versatile and enjoyed talking little league through the professionals. Don recently co-authored a book, with his good friend Todd Biggs, on coaching youth baseball. The book really gives a fantastic approach to coaching at the little league level and how to do what's best for the kids at that age. Don's perspective was amazing on handling kids involved in their first years of baseball. He was a top-notch teacher of baseball at any level. One topic Don and I often touched on was the Pittsburg Gorillas football team. The Pittsburg State University campus is only a few streets away from Don and he always followed and cheered for their teams. The football team usually has a strong club and we would discuss their season quite regular during the fall.A big bowl of ice cream and ballgame on the tube would often finish up the evenings with Don. It was always fun to sit around with him at that time and just chat. He always had a story and a smile - time spent with Don was just plain old fashioned fun!

I could go on and on about the joys of hanging out with Don. I simply can't express how fortunate and blessed I feel to have been at least a small part of his life. If you are interested in the Don Gutteridge that patrolled Major League ballparks for parts of seven decades the A's Society has the most complete and detailed account of Don's career. Ronnie complied an amazing amount of information about Don's years in the game. A great work about a great person. I will miss my evening phone conversations with Don - I always hung up with a smile!