July 16, 2022

By Patrick Kennedy

Canadian Baseball Network

For “Junior” it was to be his first game coaching on a Kingston ball diamond in more than 40 years. That’s quite a break between games at a familiar playground for hometown boy Bob Elliott, who long ago outgrew the nickname he earned in his youth as the namesake son of a local sporting hero. (“Niblet,” too, is all but forgotten, although Elliott is known to answer to “Knobber” when in the company of guys who played for him back in the day.)

Alas, Elliott was a no-show when his Mississauga Majors U16 club tamed two Kingston Jr. Ponies teams in recent exhibition games at Megaffin Park. Elliott, the Majors pitching coach, had an excuse fit for his age and stage in life: grandparental duty. Grampa Bob remained in Toronto to pick up 12-year-old grandson Xavier, who was flying solo from the Moncton.

“I was so looking forward to the games in Kingston,” the absentee coach said wistfully a few days later.

What a shame, really, because a uniformed Elliott standing on the lip of a dugout at the city’s main ball field is like seeing Ozzie Smith at shortstop, Roy Rogers on a horse, a fedora on Bogart. The two go together. The nostalgia factor alone would make the reunion worthwhile.

Three generations of Elliotts have left their mark on Kingston baseball, beginning with Bob’s grandfather, Chaucer, who spearheaded the city to the 1911 provincial title. Chaucer’s son, Bob Sr., was a superb multi-sport athlete who played three varsity sports at Queen’s University and lettered in three others. As a catcher, the original “Knobber” played 19 seasons of senior ball and coached as long afterwards.

The last game Bob Jr. coached in at Megaffin was a 1979 playoff tilt between his Ottawa-Nepean Canadians and the host Ponies. He hasn’t managed a team since relocating to Toronto in 1987. But he continues to coach. “I’ll stop when they put me in a box,” Niblet vowed.

What’s the appeal?

“It’s like Father always said, ‘You’re not just coaching a player for this year, you’re coaching him for life,’” Elliott said.

Former player Scott Thorman can attest to that. Ditto for Josh Anderson. Each played for Elliott on different teams. Both have lofty words of praise for a coach who also became a mentor. Today, Thorman, 40, manages the Kansas City Royals’ Triple-A team in Omaha, Neb., and was at the Rogers Centre this weekend since three Royals coaches — along with 10 players — were placed on the restricted list. Meanwhile Montreal Canadiens forward Anderson, 28, has eight National Hockey League seasons under his belt.

“I remember sitting beside Bob on those ball buckets and just talking ball,” recalled Anderson, a member of Elliott’s 2009 Canadian championship bantam squad from Georgetown.

“During the winter, he asked if I’d like to go to an Ontario Hockey League game, the league I was hoping to play in one day,” Anderson remembered. “Bob picked me up at my house and took me to see St. Catharines play the Ottawa 67’s. He was there for me every step of the way.”

Said Thorman: “Bob’s been in the middle of almost every influential decision I’ve had in baseball. He put me on the map with people who’ve helped shape my career.”

To this day the old coach still wears No. 51 in memory of the late Michael Kim (Mississauga, Ont.) killed in a traffic accident on Mississauga Road.

Thorman, a former first-round Atlanta Braves draft pick, has guided three Kansas City farm teams to pennants in the last three years the minors have played four seasons.

There were fringe benefits to being a friend and teammate of Bobby Elliott, the sportswriter’s son. “Bob took Bobby and me to spring training,” Thorman noted over the phone from Omaha. “We were also with him in St. Louis when Mark McGwire tied the single-season home run record.”

Elliott was a pup when he began cutting his journalism teeth at the Whig-Standard. He compiled boxscores and wrote brief game reports as a trainee, the beginning of an ink-stained career that would lead him all the way to Cooperstown — and into several halls of fame.

Coaching is a storied Elliott family tradition, one that at age 72 he still pursues with enthusiasm. He inherited his love of baseball — but not physical talent — from his father, who skippered the Kingston nine to the 1967 OBA title, the city’s first provincial pennant in 32 summers. Some put that club atop the list of all-time local teams. Sadly, Bob Elliott Sr. suffered a stroke on the field during a 1968 game at Toronto’s Leaside Park. He died less than two years later at age 60.

Bob Jr. commenced his own coaching career with a 1970 Kingscourt Baseball Association bantam squad. He’s been a volunteer coach ever since, save for a few years in the late ’80s when work and family life got too busy. Even when living the hectic life of a Major League Baseball beat writer, he escaped by — what else? — coaching the sport he loves.

“There were some years when I was coaching 50 per cent of the time,” he said, then quipped: “I couldn’t miss work, or I wouldn’t have had a house to live in.”

Baseball touches something in Elliott and indeed in all die-hard fans. The attraction is inexplicable and confounding to non-believers — my long-suffering wife, for instance, who, bless her heart, can’t understand how her teenage son can rhyme off career statistics of long-dead ball players and yet forget to hang up a wet towel. Baseball is to Elliott what nature is to Attenborough, a checkered flag to an Andretti — something of enduring interest and attraction.

Elliott joined the Whig’s sports department at age 17. He would eventually leave his hometown to work at newspapers in Ottawa and Toronto, covering the fortunes of first the Expos and then the Blue Jays.

His baseball coverage has earned him kudos galore, such as the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame’s Jack Graney award. In 2012, he became the first Canadian recipient of the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s J.G. Taylor Spink award. Bob is the founder of the Canadian Baseball Network website, the unofficial baseball bible for players from north of the 49th. And for birddogs everywhere.

Like hall-of-fame managers Sparky Anderson and Tommy Lasorda, Elliott, too, gave up playing to concentrate on coaching. Sparky and Tommy had the proverbial “cup of coffee” in the big leagues before transitioning. Bob had his “cup of coffee” in peewee before reality hit with all the subtlety of chin-high brush-back pitch.

“My playing career peaked when pitchers began throwing me curve balls,” Elliott recalled with a laugh.

He was 14 when he landed his first administrative role in the game — official scorekeeper and statistican for the 1963 Kingstom Baseball Association senior league.. All for $100.

“I had to phone CKWS and CKLC with the score after the game and make up the boxscore for the Whig-Standard.”

Two years later, he gravitated to his first “front office” job, although “General Manager” on his dad’s senior club was in truth a one-man department with Elliott wearing the hat of team statistician, equipment manager, PR flak, travelling secretary, etc., This wasn’t so much work as it was a learning opportunity. He gleaned tidbits of baseball strategy by watching his father manage in tight ballgames. He learned the game from outside “the white lines.” And being part of a top-shelf amateur team of seasoned, friendly ballplayers was a godsend for the youngster. The springboard that launched a celebrated sportswriting career? No argument there.

Besides his father and Cliffy Earl he learned for some of the best coaches in Ontario: Dave Pilkington, former Junior National Team coach Remo Cardinale, Cincinnati Reds scout Bill Byckowski, Scott VandeValk, former minor league slugger (New York Mets and Montreal Expos) Andy Lawrence, Aaron Thompson, Jeff Lamont and Mike Irving, as well as listening to Marc Picard and Rick Johnston.

When it comes to coaching, Elliott says some things never change.

“After all these years, I still can’t eat before games,” he said. “I get too nervous, just like when I was playing in the Kingscourt league for Jimmy McLaughlin, Wally Hyde or Don Gilmour.

“I feel so helpless when we walk someone.”

Patrick Kennedy is a retired Whig-Standard reporter. He can be reached at pjckennedy35@gmail.com.