MICHAEL KIRAL / L’Observateur / July 8, 2000

LULING – “They will find they have reserve seats somewhere on the baseline where they sat as children and cheered their heroes. And theywill watch the game and it will be as if they dipped themselves into magic waters. The memories will be so thick, they’ll have to brush themaway from their faces.”That quote by James Earl Jones in the movie “Field of Dreams” must be how a group of grandfathers felt this summer.

The three – Donnie Torres of Reserve, Stanford Weber of New Sarpy and Anthony Richoux of Norco – each had a grandson playing for Destrehan- Maggiore in the 13-14-year-old St. Charles Parish Franchise League thispast season. What bound the three together was that played for theLousteau Ford American Legion team in the early 1950s.

“It’s kind of like history repeating itself,” Torres said. “I can come outand see some of the guys I played with.”Torres was the shortstop on that Lousteau team that was made up of the best players from St. John, St. Charles and St. James parishes. The teamplayed at the old Shell Refinery ballpark, a field that each said was one of the best in the state.

“It was maintained like Yankee Stadium,” Torres said.

Those were the days when baseball was truly the national pastime and the Legion games were almost always a big draw.

“Wherever we played, it was a packed house,” Richoux, the catcher for Lousteau, recalled.

The team was one of the best around and had a good chance at winning a state championship. But a tragic accident in Mt. Airy late in the seasondevastated the squad. Two members were killed and several others wereinjured badly enough that they were unable to play.

“It affected a lot of the kids,” Torres said. “It was hard to get our mindsback on baseball.”Lousteau would go on to play Fortier in the South Louisiana championships, losing 3-2.

Each of the three said the game has changed since their playing days.

“I think the kids today are much more advanced than in our day,” Torres said.

Weber agreed, pointing to the better recreation departments as a reason.

“I think the recreation departments are a lot better organized,” Weber said. “We had basically no recreation in St. Charles Parish. Almost all of itwas done in American Legion and high school.”Richoux pointed to a change in technology, specially the aluminum bats now being used.

“The biggest difference is the aluminum bat,” Richoux said. “I would haveloved to have played with an aluminum bat. I would have hit the ball muchfurther.”Richoux would go on to play for LSU. He had three sons who played thegame and a number of grandchildren who are now involved in the sport.

Anthony was an outfielder on the Destrehan-Maggiore team.

“I think it’s great,” Richoux said on watching Anthony play. “I gettremendous enjoyment out of watching him play. “I told him how much weloved to play. We just played all the time. That was our pastime.”I tell him to just hustle all the time. Even if you had a bad game, you cancome back and have a good one.”Weber, the second baseman on the Lousteau team, has six grandchildren playing at different levels. Like his grandfather, Jacob Long played secondbase for Destrehan-Maggiore.

“I played a lot of ball with them,” Weber said. “I play catch with them andmake as many games as I can. If they ask me for advice, I give it to them.”Weber said he enjoyed playing baseball and is glad he is the getting the opportunity to see his grandchildren play in the sport.

“I think it’s a great way to past the time,” Weber said. “I met a lot of goodfriends playing baseball.”Torres also has a grandson, Timothy Byrd, playing the same position he did. He, like Weber and Richoux, tries to make every game, getting a chanceto reminisce about the past with his former teammates.

“I try to follow them all over,” Torres said. “It’s really enjoyable to me. Iget to see a lot of people I haven’t seen in years.”

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