Jim Bunning was a legend – and a nice guy

“We can’t afford to give you all of them, but I am going to give you this one.”

I can still see then C.C.H.S. baseball coach Mike Beard’s grin as he plopped a baseball in my hand on the nice March afternoon in 1998 at Emmitt Field.

Beard had sent a couple of bench players out past left field to retrieve the baseball that my oldest son, Brett, had just sent over the left field fence for a home run.

The significance of that home run ball was that it was the first-ever home run hit out of the then new John Emmitt Field. Brett made contact with the pitch early in the game against Monticello.

The following week, then U.S. Representative Jim Bunning, who had been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame just two years earlier in 1996, came to Clinton County High School to be the guest speaker during a ceremony that dedicated the new baseball field in the name of long-time legendary fan John Emmitt Polston.

During that afternoon, Bunning was one of the most gracious guys you would ever want to meet.

Fame from his days as a pitcher on the mound for the Detroit Tigers and Philadelphia Phillies wasn’t an issue as he milled through those who had gathered inside the gymnasium at Clinton County High School (it was raining and storming outside, forcing the dedication ceremony to be moved inside that afternoon).

During that afternoon, Bunning, who was then a U.S. Representative running for U.S. Senate – a position he was elected to and served in for two more terms – took the time out of his busy campaign schedule to spend with the fans on hand that included a daughter of the late John Emmitt Polston.

Bunning posed for a photo with the then current (Mike Beard) C.C.H.S. Baseball Coach as well as four former baseball coaches who were on hand (David Warinner, Gerald Dryden, Jimmy K. Brown and Mike Conner), and he buddied up with and chatted with the Bat Dawgs who were on hand and dressed out in full uniform for the dedication ceremony.

When he left that afternoon, Bunning was proudly clutching a Clinton County High School Bulldogs baseball uniform shirt and hat that the team and Coach Beard had presented him in appreciation for his dedication comments that day.

Also during that visit, Bunning sat down for a few minutes with Brett on the bleachers, and chatted while autographing the baseball that Beard had given me a few days earlier hit by Brett for the first-home run at the new field.

A few weeks later, when Bunning stopped by my office for an interview during his campaign for the U.S. Senate, I asked him to also autograph a couple of plaques I had made that commemorated the home-run Brett had scored which also included a photo of the Hall of Famer sitting with Brett while he autographed the ball.

The interview that day was short, because after Bunning learned that Brett was my son and he continued to remember the Emmitt Field dedication, he wanted to talk more baseball than politics, including an almost pitch by pitch rundown of his famous perfect game he threw as a Phillies pitcher against the Mets in 1964.

The plaque and the baseball hang on the wall of my “sports room” at our home in the Snow Community, and I see it almost every single day as I leave the room after enjoying my last cup of coffee.

Jim Bunning died this past weekend at the age of 85. Kentucky lost a sports legend with his passing and I was a little saddened with the news, as was Brett.

On Monday morning, as I turned to leave the sports room and decided to photograph that plaque and baseball for this week’s column, I remembered again just how gracious Bunning had been, both to our school, our baseball team, my son and myself during those visits in 1998.

I’ve met several sports celebrities in my career, and even more politicians while doing this job (more than I actually cared to meet in reality), but I will say that my experience with Jim Bunning left me feeling that he was a genuine guy who loved the game, loved kids and loved this state.

Kentucky lost a good guy when we lost Hall of Famer Jim Bunning.