Sunday, December 30, 2007

A Life On The Field

Former Met Jim Beauchamp passed away the other day, felled by leukemia. Beauchamp's career in pro ball spanned 50 years -- including 10 seasons as a major league ball player and 16 seasons as a minor league manager, twice managing International League champions. He was also Bobby Cox' bench coach with Atlanta for years, including for the 1995 World Series Champions.

Beauchamp spent the last two seasons of his playing career with the Mets, coming over after the 1971 season in a multi-player trade with the Cardinals that, among other things, sent Art Shamsky to St. Louis (though Shamsky never played for the Cardinals). Beauchamp's very first plate appearance for the Mets, on April 23, 1972, was a walk-off pinch-hit single in the bottom of the 12th inning. Beauchamp was pinch-hitting for Ed Kranepool with one out and bases loaded in the bottom of the twelfth, and his single allowed the Mets to complete a double-header sweep of the Cubs at Shea. Thereafter, his best day as a Met, and indeed the best day of his major league playing career, came on his 33rd birthday when, starting at first base and batting seventh, Beauchamp hit two homers at Shea, batting in 3 runs in a 4-2 victory over the Astros -- his only major league game with more than one extra base hit.

A classic journeyman as a player, Beauchamp averaged only 73 plate appearances a season, and was never a regular for any team, but he was still an important part of the Mets 1973 NL champions. For example, he had 4 RBIs for the Mets on May 13, 1973, in a 6-4 victory over the Pirates. The Mets only won the NL East that season by a mere game and half over the Cardinals and only two and a half games over the Pirates. So without Jim's performance on May 13, the Mets may never have gotten to the post-season in 1973, and Mets history might look a lot different.

Beauchamp's only appearances in the post-season as a player came in the 1973 World Series, when he pinch-hit for the Mets in four of the seven games -- his last appearances as a major league player. The Mets released him during spring training before the 1974 season but thought enough of him to offer him a coaching job, and though Jim still hoped to catch on with another team, he didn't find a taker, and by 1975 was managing in the minors.

Jim Beauchamp started in pro ball as an 18-year-old in the Cardinals' minor league system, and was still a coordinator in the Braves system this past season at age 68. Jim seems to have raised his son, Kash, to be a baseball lifer as well. Kash himself played 12 seasons, a thousand games, in the minors and has been working since his own retirement as a player as a coach and executive in both organized baseball and the independent leagues.

"Beauchamp" is French for "beautiful field", and sure enough Jim Beauchamp managed to spend his life on the "beautiful fields" of professional baseball, and pass on the life along with his name to the next generation.

No comments: