* His Heart Belongs To Brookline *
Jack Lombardi Right At Home Behind The Plate
by Dan McGibbeny

Jack's nimble. He's quick. You'd swear he wrote the rulebook.

This Jack isn't about to jump over any candlesticks.

But he'll squat behind a hickory stick and bellow "ball" or "strike" any old time of the day or night. Just ask him and quick as a wink he'll wiggle into the "tools of ignorance."

John (Stanky) Lombardi is as comfortable behind home plate as any backstop. He staked a claim to that spot at Brookline baseball fields from 1961 to 1984.

He'd still be - but for family circumstances - in his familiar stance back of any young catcher, croaking "stee-rike" in a guttural, threatening tone. Any manager who dared disagree with a Stanky Lombardi call would evoke nothing more than a blank stare.

"I called it the way I saw it," Stanky might offer, "Don't know how you could see it from the distance when I was right on the play. Let's play ball."

With that, Stanky Lombardi would saunter away, stretching to his 5-foot-1, 111-pound stature that seemingly would be more appropriate for a jockey.

Bystanders would frequently hear him muttering:

"You'd think they had 20-20 vision, even from 60 feet. They're good fellows and managers. Now they're trying to be umpires."

Stanky is cut from the mold of the late Bill Klem. For the uninformed, Bill Klem was a rough, tough ball-and-strike enforcer from 'way back in the 20s.' To his dying day, Bill Klem maintained he never missed a ball or strike call.

Stanky earned his nickname from another scrapper, a ballplayer named Eddie Stanky. Eddie played for Leo Durocher's Giants in the early '50s, before moving on to manage the St. Louis Cardinals in 1952. Eddie Stanky was a vociferous, belligerent opponent of umpires - any umpires.

So it is that quiet, yet forceful, Jack (Stanky) Lombardi inherits a cognomen contrary to his normal temperment. Eddie Stanky is recognized even today as a player and manager who was cognizant of the rulebook and the intricacies of performing on the diamond.

Thus John Lombardi qualifies for the nom de plume of Stanky. He wasn't any great shakes in his days at Manchester Grade School and Oliver High. Nor the Army, for that matter, although he drove a jeep. He's never driven since. He left the Army as a corporal.

But Jack found his niche during that military career. He managed a Little League team at Fort Greeley, Alaska. His Cards finished in second place in 1957. One of their 25 victories was a no-hitter on July 6 of that year.

"They were a nice bunch of kids," was his appraisal of his charges.

It's a moot point, but it's to be wondering how he felt on August 11 of the same year. He was catching batting practice without donning one of the "tools of ignorance" - a very important tool called a mask.

Yep, the batter barely tipped a pitch and Stanky Lombardi, then called Cpl. Lombardi, caught the baseball smack on the schnozzola.

"That was my first broken nose," Stanky confesses, "but I got a second one in Brookline. I was umpiring the bases and rushed to first to make a call. A wild throw from the shortstop caught me smack in the left eye. Another shiner!"

It's to be wondered if Sam "The Big E" Bryen fully understood what a gem the baseball gods were sending his way when that lean, sincere little guy approached him behind the plate, near the refreshment stand, at Brookline's old Little League field.

"Could you find something for me to do here?" the half-pint Stanky sheepishly asked Brookline's Little League president, commissioner and whatever other high falutin' titles that denote B-O-S-S.

Sam looked at the diminuative inquirer and, after a pause of two or three minutes, decided the stranger was serious. Sam, giving a good imitation of a guy who didn't need help, and did he ever, said:

"Can you umpire? We can always use a man on the bases."

Stanky leaped to the opportunity. Didn't take The Big E long to put the lithe Stanky back of the plate - where he remained for much of the next 23 years. In the moments in between, Stanky Lombardi coached, managed, cheered, carried equipment, water. You name the chores, Stanky did 'em all.

Sam Bryen, realizing he had a blooming peach here, kept placing Lombardi anywhere he needed a fill-in. Stanky was equal to the chore or occasion.

Ask Sam today for an opinion of John (Stanky) Lombardi. Five'll get you ten, the Big E will answer unequivically:

Jack "Stanky" Lombardi was the jack-of-all-trades from 1961-84.

"He did the job to the very best of his ability. You can believe that in his mind he never made a bad call as an umpire. Jack called 'em as he saw 'em."

Just like Bill Klem. Only in Stanky's case, he loves all kids too much to hurt any of them. If the managers and coaches and fans - yes, even those scattered few loud mouth kids - gave him the "Bronx," Stanky brushed it off, content in his mind that he had "called it as he saw it."

Stanky recalls his first assignment as a coach in Sam Bryen's baseball operation. He was with an instant winner.

"Sam put me with manager Chuck Barry's Automatic Sales team in 1962," Jack remembers. "We won it all."