Pitching In to Help Out : Garden Grove Man Heads Group That Assists Former Ballplayers in Need

It’s the memory of the 18-year-old kid from Fresno that has stuck with 76-year-old Chuck Stevens all these years.

In baseball, the teen-ager could do it all--hit with power, field with grace and steal bases with relative ease. But the youth’s grand potential was never realized. Returning home after a season with a minor league team in Florida, the major league prospect permanently lost the use of his legs in a car crash.

“He didn’t get a chance to see how good he could be,” said Stevens, whose pro career spanned more than two decades in the minor and major leagues, including a three-year stint with the St. Louis Browns. “I was a guy that got to play for 24 years. I don’t profess to be a psychologist, but that’s got to be the most difficult thing, when a kid like that realizes he won’t play again, ever.”

The bitter recollection is more than three decades old for Stevens, who in his 35 years as head of the little-known Assn. of Professional Baseball Players of America has heard similar tales sadly repeated over and over again. The association offers financial aid to ex-minor and major leaguers of all ages who have fallen on hard times.

In its 71 years, the association--whose board of directors includes Sparky Anderson, Tom Lasorda and Tom Seaver--has handed out millions of dollars to hundreds of former pro players in dire straits. In the case of the wheelchair-bound former prospect from Fresno, the association sent monthly checks and arranged hospital visits from major leaguers to help him rebuild his life.

“His mother later told me the fact that baseball hadn’t forgotten him helped him snap out of [a depression],” said Stevens, who notes proudly that the Fresno man is a teacher today. “I think of ballplayers as part of a big family and that we should watch out for each other.”

Apparently, lots of baseball players share Stevens’ familial vision of the sport. The association is bankrolled entirely by voluntary contributions from an estimated 12,000 major and minor league players.

Major leaguers kick in $25 per year, minor leaguers pitch in either $7 or $5, depending on their classification, and team owners match the player contributions. Stevens can recall only a couple of players--both major leaguers--who refused to give to the fund.

“That’s amazing it was just two,” said Stevens, who played high school baseball in Long Beach against Jackie Robinson and Ted Williams. “I’m proud of that.”

But don’t expect any boasting from Stevens, who has deliberately kept the association out of the limelight.

“The reason you haven’t heard about us is by design,” said Stevens, whose modest office is decorated with a World Series bat collection dating back to 1952. “It’s difficult to ask for help, especially for some people. We don’t want to make it harder for them. We want to give them their dignity.”

That’s why Stevens will not release any names of players assisted by the association.

“I’m sure we could raise more money if we wanted to by publicizing things,” Stevens said. “But we don’t want to exploit anybody.”

And the need to help is there, even in an age of million-dollar salaries, said Stevens, who earned just $100 a month as a Brown first baseman in 1940. The association usually learns of a ballplayer in trouble through the vast baseball grapevine, Stevens said.

A few years ago, a caller from Upstate New York told Stevens an ex-big leaguer was dying of cancer and was being threatened with eviction. The association wired him money to pay tax and medical bills.

“We wanted to give him the privilege of living and dying in his home and not on the streets,” Stevens said.

Last year, the association bought former Dodger outfielder Glenn Burke a cellular phone and set up a line of credit for him at a local restaurant in the San Francisco Bay Area. Burke, one of the few major leaguers to say openly that he is gay, is battling AIDS and at last report was homeless in San Francisco.

“That was our first case of AIDS,” Stevens said. “We just saw a ballplayer who was a street person and didn’t have any income. AIDS is not a stigma that we are going to back away from.”

However, the association draws a strict line when it comes to substance abuse. While it will help pay for treatment, the organization will not give money to an ex-player abusing drugs or alcohol, Stevens said.

“We won’t touch them with a 40-foot pole,” Stevens said.

In most other cases, though, the association honors requests for assistance. Need, not notoriety, determines who gets help and how much.

“If a kid plays 20 minutes of minor league ball, he gets the same consideration as a Hall of Famer,” Stevens said.

Every once in a while, Stevens fields an unusual request from a former player who obviously has misunderstood the association’s mission.

“One fella wanted to know if we could help him pay his jewelry bill,” Stevens said laughing. “That sure was a strange one.”

Stevens said that while his efforts to reach out to players fallen on hard times can be extremely gratifying, they can also be tragic.

“Some you can salvage. Some you can’t,” he said. “It’s hard to accept when you give it your best shot and things still don’t work out. It’s heartbreaking, but that’s life, I guess.”