Womack visits City Stadium for NABF ceremonies

After speaking at Thursday night’s National Amateur Baseball Federation World Series opening ceremonies at City Stadium, and throwing out the first pitch before the Lynchburg Hillcats played the Potomac Nationals, former Major League World Series champion Tony Womack shared some quality time with players from his alma mater.

The 1987 Gretna graduate who batted leadoff for the 2001 champion Arizona Diamondbacks, met with members of the Hawks’ high school team participating in the NABF tournament, gathered under a tent down the first-base line.

“I’m living proof you don’t have to be the biggest or the greatest, you just have to prepare to do everything right,” said Womack, making only his second trip to City Stadium and first since 1983, when he saw the Dwight Gooden and Lenny Dykstra-led Lynchburg Mets. “It’s the mental aspect.

“If you catch the routine balls and make the routine plays every time, you’ll win nine out of 10 games,” added Womack, who had a .965 career fielding percentage while making both routine and acrobatic plays at second base. “You give them one extra out and you’ll lose seven out of 10 times.”

Talking to close to 1,000 players from 50 teams on hand for the opening ceremonies, Womack encouraged them to stay away from alcohol and drugs, including steroids, and do the work needed to advance through the baseball ranks.

“You have the God-given talent on the field,” he said. “You know how to make the plays. It takes talent to win the World Series championship.”

But, he emphasized, it also takes heart.

“To play the game it takes effort,” he said. “It doesn’t take talent to get that effort in there,” pointing to his chest.

Womack said steroids may provide power, but they also create health hazards that have shortened careers.

“You get crazy injuries from using steroids,” he said. “I don’t feel cheated (by those who have used them). They’re cheating themselves. I never drank, never smoked because I didn’t need it. “I stayed clean … and played 13 (Major League) seasons.”

He never played in the NABF, but would have liked to before being drafted out of Guilford by the Pittsburgh Pirates, where he played the first five years of his Major League career.

“Every step that you take, the game gets faster,” Womack said. “That’s why I like the wooden bats (used by NABF and MLB).”

The NABF, the oldest continuously operated national baseball organization in the United States, has groomed more than its share of Major Leaguers.

“We’ve produced a lot of good ballplayers,” said NABF executive director Charles Blackburn, noting nearly the entire starting lineup from the 1990 World Series champion Cincinnati Reds played in the league.

Blackburn, who has served as executive director since 1987, is only the third person to hold that title since the organization’s inception in 1914.

“Normally, the good Lord retires us,” said Blackburn, who once served as a scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates. “The great thing about it is it’s an all-volunteer organization.”

Blackburn said this is one of the first times a city has hosted two NABF World Series — the high school (17-and-under) and sophomore (14-and-under) divisions — at the same time.

“It’s a big boost to a town,” he said. “Fifty teams (over five days) equates to $5 million to the Lynchburg area because all of the teams come in with families and they visit restaurants and stay at hotels and buy gas.”

He praised the town of Altavista for rebuilding its War Memorial Park field, used by the high school team, before hosting the NABF sophomore division’s first games Wednesday night.

“It’d just been run down and now it’s a showcase field, with new dugouts and a new sprinkler and irrigation system,” he said. “They collected that money from the community and the city matched it. It’s very inspirational to see the community come together like that.”