Dads share origin of town’s annual PONY tourney
Editor’s note: As Ramona PONY Baseball prepares to host its 28th annual Memorial Weekend tournament, friends of longtime Ramona resident Mike Wrightsman suggested the Sentinel tell the community about the man who presented the idea of a Ramona PONY tournament after a tournament experience “down the hill” in 1991.
[NPI Float=”left”]/Media/2/jpg/2010/5/dfc90c85-f808-b771-c450f0b73182a355.jpg[/NPI] Mike Wrightsman lives for baseball — PONY baseball.
“It isn’t just the sport itself,” said longtime friend Mike Shirley. “He has given a large part of his life to the kids that are in it. Anybody that would give 150 percent to that thing — that was him.”
Wrightsman, said Shirley, would get off work at 3:30 p.m. and head immediately to the baseball field to make sure anything that needed to be done would be finished.
“If we needed maintenance done, he found either the crew to do it or did it himself,” said Shirley. “If something needed to be built — the same. He never complained about resources or time.”
Wrightsman kept coming in and filling all the gaps whenever and wherever necessary.
Asked how he came to be a board member, Wrightsman laughed.
“Well, it wasn’t really something I’d planned,” he said.
Getting involved in the beginning is a natural course that many parents take.
“I became involved because my kids were in PONY,” he said. “I was a coach and a manager first.”
Taking on a team or two was one thing, but the Ramona’s PONY league might never have grown to what it is today had it not been for the vision of “just a dad” getting involved for the sake of his kids. After taking a team to a tournament in Mira Mesa in 1991, Wrightsman returned “up the hill” with a plan for the future.
“They used to send teams down the hill to play in tournaments,” said Wrightsman. “The board asked me to take a team to the Mira Mesa tournament. Through the loser’s bracket, we got to play the winner of the winner’s bracket on the last day. We lost to them. These kids played their hearts out for four days. You know what they got? A Xeroxed copy of a certificate on typing paper. I was so mad. These kids played their hearts out for four days for a piece of paper?”
Wrightsman knew that the kids — any kids — deserved better than that.
The coach went to bat for the kids.
“I talked to the board members,” he said. “I felt that we, as a league, could do a better job putting together a tournament up here. I heard money was tight back then, so showed the board that, if we put on a tournament, the kids would get tournament experience, and we would not only save money but make money as well. It got harder to sell candy — everyone was doing that — but we could charge teams to come play. We could make money from the snack bar, the ticket sales ... We invited people from wherever. Pure profit. We cleared $800 the first tournament. We had about 30 teams that first year and only one team from each division in Ramona. We got our team set and our first game started on a Friday night.”
Wrightsman made sure there were trophies for first and second place — not pieces of paper. The second year
“I felt strongly for all the kids to have something,” he said. “We developed a small hatpin that said Ramona tournament with the year. Even if they didn’t win a trophy, each and every kid got something to go home with. It got so popular teams started contacting us from as far away as Palm Springs and Adelaide so they could be on our mailing list.”
That first tournament in 1992 rolled into a second and ushered in a new board member with a passion for the sport that holds to this day. Wrightsman has demonstrated a deep commitment to the kids in Ramona by “being there” for those in the sport. Wrightsman was more than a coach and board member, said Shirley, commenting that Wrightsman initiated many projects “down at the fields” as well. From scoreboards and bleachers to maintenance, Wrightsman dedicated 10 years of service to the Ramona PONY fields. Wrightsman said he got the grass infield and irrigation put in, the bleachers on field two and other numerous projects many have long forgotten.
“I got the first electronic scoreboard for the ballfield down there,” said Wrightsman. “I spoke with the President of Shea Homes to donate the board.”
The $3,500 sign, said Shirley, was presented to the board, “but they said they didn’t have the money to install it. Mike got it approved and installed. He was always good at getting people to come in and help out. He made a few calls and did the legwork — a lot more than many of us would have done.”
Wrightsman, with a wave of his hand, brushes off the feat. “Ah, I just rounded up a bunch of dads: Mark Miller wired it up for us, Jim Piva donated the ditch witch for the trench, Paul VanSlyke donated the PVC to run the wires through, Bill Freeman and Keith Jones — they were all local contractors. I went to a mason and said we needed bleachers on field two. He agreed to donate them if I volunteered to be his labor to help build them.”
With a slight shrug of a shoulder, he added, “Of course, whatever it took”
Another former PONY dad and coach, Wrightsman’s friend Bruce Parker said the original scoreboard has been taken down and replaced by new. As new memories come in, original efforts can sometimes be forgotten, he said.
“The people who came together to make PONY what it is for the people in this town are all local people who cared so much about the kids and this sport that it made all the difference,” said Parker.
PONY baseball was developed as a means for kids to stay focused on something positive. “Protecting Our Nation’s Youth” (PONY) is credited for keeping countless youngsters across the nation off drugs and out of gangs.
“If you can keep them wrapped up in something that keeps them busy and that they enjoy doing, you will help them develop healthy relationships,” said Shirley.
As Wrightsman continued striving for the kids at the PONY fields, lasting relationships were forged into today’s memories. As father, worker, board member and friend, Wrightsman is still called “coach” by many of those little boys that now have PONY leaguers of their own.
“We had one Mustang team that went to the finals in Moreno Valley,” said Wrightsman. “We were one game away from going to the world series. We came out of the winner’s bracket as winners but ended up losing to Fountain Valley.”
“I can say that 90 percent of the friends we have today, we met through PONY baseball,” said Shirley. “Mike lives for the kids up here. Getting that whole PONY baseball tournament going was his dream. He is a genuinely sincere person who really cares about the kids. It’s all about Ramona and the baseball. We’ve been out of it for 15 years, but he still lives for the game.
“All his kids are named after baseball players. “There’s Mickey, Dusty, Casey and Danny. His life has literally revolved around the sport. He and I have been best friends for years. He can’t do much any more, but even that little league world series that came around a couple of years ago. He watched every game.”
Wrightsman, in a bitter twist of fate, has been stricken with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, after Gehrig, a baseball player in the 1920s was stricken with ALS. As one muscle at a time shuts down, Wrightsman is finding it more and more difficult to get around the house, much less to the PONY fields where memories remain of things accomplished. Confined to a wheelchair — and without a lift-equipped van to facilitate mobility beyond the house — Wrightsman reminisces with anyone who drops by for a visit. Inevitably, according to all who know him, the conversations go right back to PONY baseball. Wrightsman’s eyes fill with joy when he talks about teams, or players, or what happened during one of the games. Genuine excitement and passion pour from the man who began this journey as “just a dad.”