Elrod Hendricks Always Around Game He Loves

Oh, for the life of a major-league baseball coach. All you do is watch a ball game for a couple hours a day, right?

You don’t if you’re Elrod Hendricks, the Orioles’ bullpen coach since Earl Weaver hired him in 1977.

Hendricks is a rare baseball man in that he gets out of bed before noon. He has to. He runs a baseball camp for kids ages 6-16 at McDonogh School with Mike McMillan, the school’s football and baseball coach.

Tuesday morning, before 8 o’clock, Hendricks, in his red and white van, pulled in to the beautiful McDonogh campus to get things organized for his 130 campers.

“Elrod’s here before I am,” said McMillan. “That was the first thing we had to agree on when we started this seven years ago.

“Some baseball players think all they have to do if they have a camp is sign autographs. Elrod is here every day until he has to leave for the ball park.”

From 8:45 to 9, Hendricks talks with his 23 counselors, one of whom is his 16-year-old son, Ryan, who is already a star McDonogh athlete. At 6-foot-3, Ryan is a lanky but broad-shouldered 190 pounds.

“Ryan is our varsity tight end,” says McMillan. “He has good hands and he can catch the football. He also plays basketball and baseball for us. He’s a first baseman.”

“They tried to make a catcher out of Ryan,” says his father, who caught in four World Series for the Orioles and New York Yankees, “and that about drove him out of baseball.”

At 9 o’clock, McMillan and Hendricks go into the cafeteria to address the campers.

“You handled yourselves well when I brought Gregg Olson out here yesterday,” Hendricks tells the youngsters, “so I’ll bring some more players, plus some from the Toronto club. Mr. Olson signed autographs, but I want to stress that this is not an autograph session. The reason we’re here is to learn about baseball. Now let’s hit it.”

The kids break into their various groups, depending on their ages.

Joe Bosley, assistant baseball coach at Randallstown High, takes some older boys to the varsity diamond. Ryan Hendricks has some younger ones on a junior field, where the bases are 60 feet apart. McMillan’s son, Mike Jr., a recent McDonogh grad who will enter Western Maryland in the fall, is loading the batting machine under the football stadium for 9-year-old Nick Rogers, a Calvert School fourth-grader.

“The joy of this,” Elrod Hendricks says, “is seeing a kid improve. Sometimes we see one for the first time and we say, ‘It’ll take a miracle.’ And then maybe I go on the road with the ball club for a week and when I come back the kid is starting to look like a baseball player.”

There are two three-week sessions each summer. More than half the campers do both sessions. The second begins July 10.

“Mike McMillan is perfect for this kind of work,” says Hendricks. “He’s sincere and he loves kids. He reminds me of Brooks Robinson. By the second day, he knows all their names -- their first and last names.”

The air is stiflingly humid and the temperature is in the high 90s, and Hendricks is out on the mound with five pitchers. He is working on their motions. Sweat pours off the 49-year-old coach.

“One thing about Elrod,” says McMillan, “he’ll always give you an honest answer.”

“OK, Elrod,” says a visitor. “Answer this one: Are the Orioles going to win their division?”

“You want an honest answer?” Hendricks says.

“Of course.”

“Honestly,” he says, “I don’t know. If we stay healthy we have a real good shot at it. Our pitching went through hell last weekend in California. Our bullpen is dead.”

A McDonogh maintenance man volunteers an opinion.

“I’m worried about New York closing in on our lead,” he says.

Hendricks does a double take.

“If you’re going to start worrying in June,” says this veteran of 31 years in professional baseball, “it’s going to be a long season.

“I haven’t seen ‘em yet,” says Hendricks, “but I think Toronto is the team to beat. They have a good club, and they’re starting to play good baseball.”

In a matter of hours, Hendricks will see Toronto, which is here for a three-game series.

Hendricks arrives at the Stadium at 3 o’clock to begin his day’s work with the Orioles. He knows it will be late when he leaves.

“We can’t play a game in under three hours,” he says, “so that’s 10:30 when it ends. I’m here for at least an hour after that, getting ready for the next day. It’s after midnight when I get home to get a little sleep so I can come to McDonogh first thing in the morning.”

Hendricks’ first 1989 look at the Blue Jays does make them look like the team to beat -- so the Orioles beat them, 16-6. When it ends, the clock says 11:07. It will be more like 1 a.m. when Hendricks gets home.

But with the Orioles in first place, and with kids at his camp learning baseball and improving, Elrod Hendricks is not complaining. In spite of the hours, it’s a very good life.