Cooperstown bound

Who said only baseball players can get into the hall of fame?
After more than 60 years of being an executive, Roland Hemond, the father of Hannibal Cavemen Manager Jay Hemond and Cavemen Owner Bob Hemond, will be enshrined at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. Saturday, July 23.
“I’m stunned, really,” Roland said Monday on a trip through Hannibal to spend some time with his sons. “I’m just thrilled beyond description.”
Roland is being awarded the Buck O’Neil Lifetime Achievement Award and is the second person to receive the honor. O’Neil, a legendary Negro Leagues ballplayer out of Kansas City, Mo.,  was the first to recognized when he received the inaugural award posthumously in 2008, nearly two years after his death.
“Carrying the name of Buck O’Neil on it is so meaningful,” Roland said. “I met him about four times and I was just overwhelmed how kind he was and it felt like you were meeting an old friend.”
His career began in Connecticut with an affiliate of the Boston Braves in 1951 and then the major league club gave him a chance to work in their offices. The Braves gave him two weeks in Boston and then they would decide what happened next.
“Well here I am, my 61st season,” Roland said. “I survived the tryout and hit the trails at various times in my career with different clubs.”
During his time in the Braves organization, the team won the 1957 World Series and signed a young man out of the Negro Leagues in Indianapolis. An outfielder by the name of Hank Aaron.
It’s also where he met his wife, Margo. She just happened to be the daughter of John Quinn, the Braves General Manager.
Roland said she got his attention when by messing around with a chalkboard that listed the players in the Braves organization.
“She’s a cute little gal, Mr. Quinn, but she’s a real pest,” Roland told his boss. “Little did I realize that someday she would become my wife.”

The Chicago White Sox
After different positions with different teams, Roland eventually made his way to the Chicago White Sox where he became the team’s general manager.
It was there where he worked for legendary baseball owner Bill Veeck for five years.
“He was a genius,” Roland said. “Not only did he know baseball, he had great connections within the game and loved ballplayers and gave opportunities to players that other clubs would otherwise pass up on.”
Veeck’s most notable stunt came when he was the owner of the St. Louis Browns (Baltimore Orioles). He sent Eddie Gaedel to the plate to bat, only problem is that Gaedel was a midget standing at 3-foot-7.
Veeck went on to have numerous other crazy schemes. One of them was Disco Demolition Night while owner of the White Sox.
Roland remembers that night in 1979. It was only supposed to be a promotion in between a doubleheader the White Sox had with the Detroit Tigers, but instead the second game was forfeited when chaos broke out on the field.
A local disc jockey started a movement against disco music and an over-capacity crowd showed up at Comiskey Park.
“It was a crazy evening. I fell for it myself,” Roland remembered. “By the time the final out came about, the youngsters were throwing their records out to the relief pitcher of the Tigers and when they charged the field, they started a bonfire. They were tearing up the field and trying to steal bases and the pitcher’s mound and home plate.
“We’re still talking about it, so I still think it was quite the promotion.”
But it was the eccentric ideas, Roland said, that Veeck came up with made fans come out to the ballpark.
“He used to say, ‘Roland, let your imagination run rapid. Propose anything. I’ll tell you that its been tried before, but we can embellish it. We have to let the fans have a good time at the ballpark’,” Roland said. “That’s where his promotional genius paid off because people came to the park and had a good time and kept coming back.”

A kid named La Russa
Loren Babe who had baseball success with the New York Yankees was managing a team in Denver when he fell ill and had one of the players stand in for him. That adolescent infielder was a young Italian-American kid named Tony La Russa.
“I think this young man could be an outstanding manager,” Babe told Roland.
So Roland kept his eye on the young infielder. He too was convinced that La Russa had a lot of baseball knowledge and the ability to manage one day. Roland went ahead and made sure Veeck got to know La Russa as well.
“And after two days, he said, ‘You’re right, we’ve got to keep track of Tony La Russa’,” Roland said.
Eventually La Russa got managing jobs in the White Sox farm system and in August of 1979, Veeck hired him to be the manager of the big league club.
“And the rest is history. He’s a future hall of famer without question,” Roland said. “We owe a lot to Bill Veeck. He played a major role in my life and for Tony as well.

The greatest player of all-time
Clearly with more than 60 baseball seasons under his belt — along with two additiional World Series Championships with the 2005 Chicago White Sox and the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks — Roland has seen the best players on a baseball field.
He’s close friends with some of baseball’s most defined stars. He certainly won’t be a stranger to the hall of famers he’s meeting up with in Cooperstown Saturday. But out of all those stars, there’s only one that stands out in his eyes as the greatest of all time. The one ballplayer that was the definition of greatness.
Out of all the great stars to choose from, Roland said there’s no one better than “Hammerin’ Hank.”
“Henry was not only a good hitter, he played the game very fundamentally well. He hit the cutoff man, he had an accurate arm, good running speed. The whole package,” Roland said. “He has been the best player that I had been in association within my lifetime.”

A hall of famer
Roland’s induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame comes a day before Bert Blyleven and Roberto Alomar, but he will be acknowledged on national television during the live ceremony presentation on MLB Network.
He says his speech is pretty much finished, but it has kept him up at night.
“I’ve got a long list of people that I would have to thank. I can’t use all their names in my speech Saturday but my thoughts will be with many people,” Roland said. “You keep running it through your mind and make some changes.”
Many family members plan to take the trip Cooperstown for Roland’s big day. Jay is even turning managerial duties over to assistant coach Corey Gareri so he can attend the event.
And with his many years of experience under his belt, Roland leaves this advice.
“You don’t do it by yourself by any means,” he said. “You’re only as good as the people working with you.”