State-Journal.com - Baby always has a ball

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James M. Johnson, 77, more commonly known as “Baby,” checks the temperature of a hot dog at the concession stand at Lakeview Park. Baby manages the concessions at the city’s nine ball fields and two pools. (State Journal/Hilly Schiffer)

George Arnold and Baby chat on the sidelines during the Western Hills High School and Frankfort High School football game. The pair frequently attends high school football and basketball games throughout the county. (State Journal/Hilly Schiffer)

Baby sits in his office at East Frankfort Park where supplies, including drinks and candy bars, are stored before they are sold at different venues. Baby has worked with Frankfort Parks and Rec in some capacity since 1965. (State Journal/Hilly Schiffer)

If you’ve been to a youth sporting event in Frankfort in the last 50 years or so, you’ve probably seen Baby.

More often than not, he was there.

He might have been the basketball referee dancing with the band during timeouts or the man in the stands at the football game, yucking it up with friends and strangers alike.

Or you might have seen him sneaking a peak at the action as he transported Snickers and nacho chips and giant, salty pretzels between ball fields in his old, crummy truck - the one they called the Baby White.

Because that’s how Baby has been filling his days since he moved to the Capital City 60 years ago - with the ping! of aluminum bats, the cheer of the crowd and the smell of popcorn.

Good times is what he’d call it. Good times for everyone around him, too.

He’s always been Baby

James “Baby” Johnson will be the first to tell you he’s gotten plenty of use out of his lifelong nickname.

As the youngest of 13 growing up in Jenkins, Ky., the handle caught on early.

“My brothers and sisters always referred to me as their baby brother,” he recalled from his office in East Frankfort Park, “so one time when someone asked what my name was I said, ‘Baby.’”

Somewhere down the line, Baby started greeting everyone else with the moniker, too.

“I’ve capitalized on it,” he said. “It’s unique. No other 77-year-old person goes around calling people Baby.”

Baby has been retired since 1986, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s grown old. Growing old isn’t in his plans.

Even in his so-called retirement, Baby manages the concession facilities at the nine ball fields and two pools run by Frankfort Parks, Recreation and Historic Sites.

It’s something he has been doing for years.

Baby originally moved to Frankfort as a minor league umpire moonlighting as a physical education teacher at Bald Knob Elementary the other nine months of the year.

He gave up the umpiring life a few summers later when he married Jean, his wife of 47 years who was a second-grade teacher at the school.

That’s when Baby decided to make his home in Frankfort as a teacher and administrator in Franklin County Public Schools, a career that spanned 26 years.

Baby never completely abandoned the sporting life, though. Incorporating his own personal flair, he officiated high school basketball games in the winters and worked baseball games in the summers for 25 years in the area.

Watching Baby call a basketball game was entertainment in itself. When he donned the zebra-striped shirt, timeouts were dance breaks. Whistles were optional. Women were distractions.

He liked to do a jig to the band’s music during breaks and earned the name ‘Tweety’ from coaches because of his habit for blowing his whistle - without his whistle. (He can make a sound that is eerily similar with his mouth.)

“I did it to shake people up,” Baby said. “When things got quiet you could sneak it in there.”

Strange noises weren’t the only thing Baby tried to squeeze into games.

Former Frankfort Parks and Recreation Director Steve Brooks, who officiated alongside Baby 30 years ago, recalled a one-sided game at Franklin County where he had to stop play because his partner had vanished from the court.

“I look and he’s up there hugging on some blonde in the bleachers,” Brooks said. “That’s Baby for you.”

For the love of the game

When Baby first started working for Parks and Rec, baseball and softball games were played at State Stadium and Second Street, a 9 oz. cup of soda cost 10 cents and the annual soap box derby attracted youth from all over town.

“Kids today probably don’t even know what a soap box derby is,” he said with a chuckle.

Baby leased and operated Juniper Hill and the East Frankfort pool for a stretch in the ’60s and has been involved with the East Frankfort Baseball Tournament since its inception.

His main contribution to the department over the last 40 years has been managing the concessions, a job that has grown in scale and scope instep with the proliferation of city parks.

In addition to his work for the city, Baby also has helped coordinate and conduct fundraisers for various student organizations and sports teams

“He’s been a real mentor to the kids through the years,” said Kiwanis member Eugene Harrell, who sees Baby in action every year at the EFK Baseball Tournament.

“He’s helped them fund their organizations and taught them how to be good business people.”

Now that he’s in his golden years, Baby said running around with young people in the summer months has kept his mind young.

But as a former principal, he claims he can still fall back on his authoritarian guise when necessary.

“Most of them are pretty good,” he said of the kids. “I can still chew ass, but when I get through chewing I say, ‘Let’s go have a good time!’”

When school starts up again, Baby keeps up with the youngsters, attending the “best game in town” at the three local high schools whether it’s Franklin County, Western Hills or Frankfort.

Rarely a week goes by that he doesn’t make an appearance at a stadium or gym.

His only true sports allegiance over the years has been to his alma mater, the University of Kentucky.

Baby has only missed one Wildcat football game since Commonwealth Stadium opened in 1973 and has traveled as far as Kansas and Florida to see the Cats in action.

Not even a fight with cancer could keep Baby from his fun.

Diagnosed with colon cancer in 2003, Baby scheduled his 24 chemotherapy treatments around the football season. He didn’t miss a game - home or away.

“It was something that had to be done, so you do it,” he said. “Not everything in this life is easy.”

Good times

It’s a lesson that Baby learned early in his life, growing up in the coal mining town of Jenkins during the Great Depression.

Money was tight and the town was segregated into two groups: company people and laborers. Baby’s family belonged to the latter group.

“We were slaves,” he said.

Chopping wood and shoveling coal were everyday chores and if there was something other than bean soup or a potato on the dinner table there were 24 other hands to fight off to get it.

“I swore to myself that if I ever got out of there, I would never eat another soup bean,” Baby said.

Sports were a welcome distraction from the everyday struggles in Jenkins. Baby remembers roaming around with neighborhood kids, finding a flat space among the mountains and playing till the sun went down.

“We made our own rules and called our own games,” he said.

In high school, Baby got his first taste of organized sports as a center on the football team and catcher in baseball. He didn’t come across the sport he loves dearest, however, until college.

As a freshman physical education major, Baby discovered his love for gymnastics. He practiced his technique in all the different events and even belonged to a tumbling group briefly at UK.

“I guess the reason why I loved it was because I could do more than most people thought I could,” he said.

To earn his beer money in college, Baby would walk into a bar, tell everyone to put their quarters on the table and perform a backflip off the bar stool.

“It was good times,” he said, “so they told me.”

Endless giving

Good times have taken on a different form today for Baby, a more subtle, more generous form in many instances.

He’s been known to help a local group in need every now and then, preferring to do it quietly.

“He’ll call me and he’ll say, ‘Does everybody have everything they need this year?’” said Kelly Caldwell, who coaches all three high school swim teams in the county.

“He has put kids through college that nobody even knows about.”

Baby is finally wrapping up his involvement with the Parks and Recreation Department this year after fall baseball ends in the first week of October.

For many, summers at the ball fields and swimming pools will never be the same.

“The city is really going to miss him,” Brooks said. “In my 39 years as director, he was one of most valuable employees.”

Baby seems at peace with the decision.

“When I walk, I walk,” he said. “It’s over.”

He hasn’t yet put much thought into how he’ll stay busy in the summers to come, but it probably won’t be too hard.

He still fills in at LeCompte-Johnson-Taylor funeral home when needed, a business he has been involved with since he wrapped up his education career, and is an active member at First Baptist Church.

He’ll also have more time to visit the family of his son, Talmage, who has a wife and two daughters in Oxford, Miss.

“I’ll come up with something,” he said.

More likely than not he’ll end up at a game, any game, taking in the action, relishing another day of infinite youth.