30 July 2008

Nick Siemasz does it all for the Mets

By George Kostinas
Hyannis -

He’s in the dugout or by the batting cage coaching the players, or supervising the bat boys or raking the dirt around home plate or doing just about anything that needs to be done.

Summer after summer, the lean, tall, yet slightly hunched at the shoulders from age figure of Nick “The Greek” Siemasz can be seen at McKeon Field in Hyannis.

Siemasz, 76, has been a coach in the Cape Cod Baseball League for 31 years, the last 24 of them with the Hyannis Mets.

Managers and general managers have come and gone but Siemasz is still around. In fact, in his first five years with the Mets, he worked with five different managers.

“The general manager at that time was John Decus. He wanted to win, so if you didn’t make the playoffs he’d fire you,” says Siemasz, who figures he has seen 14 or 15 different managers in Hyannis.

“I’ve known Nick for 15 years back when my son was a bat boy — he’s 23 now. Nick’s just part of the deal,” says current Mets GM Bill Bussiere.

“They [Mets’ organization] told me, ‘You can come back as long as you want,’” says Siemasz.
Several years ago the Mets retired his number 10.

“I was out there raking the field when I heard someone making an announcement about somebody who had been here for 25 years, and I’m thinking, ‘Who the hell has been here 25 years,’” recalls Siemasz.

Since then he has worn number 27, but when the Mets got new uniforms this year a new number 10 came along with them.
“All the players signed it, and they gave it to me,” he says.

While Siemasz may appear to be a “fixture” in the organization, Bussiere says he’s so much more than that — Coach Emeritus.

“It’s his experience. He’s been in this league for 31 years. The players adore him. He probably forgot more about this game than most coaches know,” says Bussiere.

Siemasz not only coaches the players, but he also gives the managers advice from about how to work with the players to how to get to the various ballparks in the league and what to expect when they get there.

“I’d say of all the people, he’d be the one I’d vote for Most Valuable Player,” says Mets first-year field manager Rick Robinson.

“He knows it all and does it all. He is valuable in that he assists with the players, and he is able to communicate to them the history and significance of Cape Cod baseball. They value his opinion because he has had the opportunity to work with the best players to come through Hyannis and the Cape Cod Baseball League,” says Robinson.

“I’ve seen them come and go: good players, bad players and otherwise,” says Siemasz.
And he likes to tell stories about the good ones.

“Jason Varitek played here in 1991 when we won the championship. He was a freshman that year. And then the next year he played for Team USA. And then he came back the year after that and won the batting title. I think he was the only guy to be named All-America three times in college,” says Siemasz.

Siemasz began his professional baseball career right out of Miami Edison High School in Florida in 1951.

“Pepper Martin signed me to the [Brooklyn] Dodgers,” says Siemasz. “I took the train from Miami to Vero Beach, where the Dodgers had spring training. Here I was a 17-year-old kid playing professional baseball.”

Siemasz remembers spring training with the 32 minor league teams in the Dodgers' organization.

“We were all together. Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella. We would all eat together, sometimes shoot pool. I remember the first time Sandy Koufax came to the Dodgers,” says Siemasz.

His best year in the minors was in 1956 when he batted .380 while playing B level ball.

“Orlando Cepeda beat me out of the batting title; he hit .390,” Siemasz says adding, “I had a cup of coffee in Triple A ball.”

After 1959, he was through with professional baseball, but coached in a number of semi-pro leagues and at various colleges before finding his way to the Cape league.

At Miami-Dade Community College he worked with Mickey Rivers, Bucky Dent and even Steve Carlton.

“I’ve been in baseball almost all my life. My father, who was a simple farmer, said to me, ‘Son, get a real job. Baseball is for kids. He didn’t know how much money could be made. I never made anything — peanuts. But I didn’t care. I love it. I’m blessed to be here.”