Story Photos
 Photo by Greg Ebersole Jefferson Parish, La., manager Bill Babin, far left, was all smiles after his team won the 15-year-old Babe Ruth World Series on Aug. 28, 2004 in Longview |
Champions in the face of disaster
Saturday, December 31, 2005 11:29 PM PST
By Rick S. Alvord
Printable version
E-mail this articleIt's difficult to forget Bill Babin's goofy grin.
It never left his face on that perfect summer evening at David Story Field, when his 15-year-old all-stars from Jefferson Parish, La., captured the Babe Ruth World Series baseball championship with a 5-0 win over El Segundo, Calif.
It was Aug. 28, 2004. A year later, to the day, he and his wife, Margaret, found themselves hunkered down inside a small three-bedroom house in Baton Rouge, La., with 11 other family members and three dogs.
Hurricane Katrina was hours away from making landfall.
Only eight days earlier, Babin was flashing that thousand-watt grin once again when he managed Jefferson Parish to the World Series championship in nearby Abbeville, La. It was the first time since 1968 that a Babe Ruth 15-year-old team had won back-to-back titles.
Babin, 49, considers it a privilege to take young baseball players ---- the best of the best from the Jefferson Parish Recreation Department ---- and mold them into a national powerhouse. He absorbs plenty from the experience, both as a coach and self-appointed father.
"The good Lord didn't bless Margaret and I with kids of our own, so they are our kids," he said. "I feel blessed to be able to coach them."
As he waited out the massive hurricane, which would inflict billions of dollars in damage and take more than 1,300 lives, Babin's thoughts and prayers were with his players and their families.
"We lost power in Baton Rouge, but it wasn't bad. We didn't get hit with the brunt of the storm," said Babin, a bankruptcy attorney in New Orleans when he's not coaching baseball. "We ended up staying in that small house for two weeks ---- 13 adults and three dogs."
In the days following the catastrophe, Babin scanned the classifieds from the local newspaper and took to the streets. He signed five leases to houses and apartments so his relatives and friends had somewhere to stay while the tragedy and madness back home simmered.
Multiple families occupied the five dwellings.
"The people in Baton Rouge were wonderful. There was no Katrina price gouging at all," he said. "Most of us down here are third- and fourth-generation families. We've been here for many years. So when something like this happens, most of the people try to help. If you gouge somebody, it's like gouging your own brother or sister."
Returning home
Babin had seen the flooding in New Orleans, and his own Jefferson Parish, on television. He was certain that his home had been badly damaged, if not destroyed.
He and Margaret would have to start over.
Babin contacted a friend on the Jefferson Parish Police Department, who would later allow him to enter the area ---- which had been under mandatory evacuation ---- to check on his home.
Babin saw the horror in the Lakeview section of New Orleans, where he was born and raised.
"It was ... beyond description," he said. "You'd have to see it to believe how bad it was."
And his mother's home, located in Orleans Parish, was completely flooded. The posters and pennants from Babin's own Babe Ruth playing days in the 1970s were lost forever.
But when he reached his home, a glimpse of that trademark grin returned. If only for a minute.
"I live only about a half-mile from the 17th Street Canal," Babin said, referring to the doomed levee that was crushed by floodwaters. "The difference between being flooded and not flooded was living on the correct side of the levee ---- the lucky side. We didn't get flooded at all."
Large oak trees and debris littered his property. By the time Rita slammed into the region three weeks later with the back end of a hurricane combo punch, Babin had contracted a company to remove the trees.
"Trees are one thing. Flooding is another," he said. "My house was OK. I was worried about the people who weren't OK."
The Babe Ruth family
Brian Seay was part of a Jefferson Parish pitching staff that allowed one run ---- unearned ---- in six World Series games in 2004, as the team outscored opponents 41-1 en route to the championship.
Floodwaters gutted the entire first floor of the home Seay shares with his family. They are now living entirely on the second floor.
Catcher Stefan Farrell and outfielder Johnny Carr, and assistant coach Mark Maher, among others, were flooded out of their homes.
The Jefferson Parish Recreation Department ---- "JRPD!" as fans chanted in Longview ---- is a tight-knit clan. Babin said Katrina's fury stabbed them in the heart when the father of one of the league's 14-year-old players drowned in Florida while evacuating the storm.
"It was the day before Katrina hit and his nephew had wandered off toward the surf," Babin explained. "So he went in to save the nephew. He did save him ---- but he got pulled under and lost his life doing it. He was 44 years old."
Jefferson Parish was riding a baseball high last August. After Babin's 15-year-olds repeated as national champs, it was the 14 year-old team's turn to compete in the World Series at Quincy, Mass.
They, too, won it all, beating Nash County, N.C., 5-1 in the title game.
Many of the players' parents returned home to New Orleans safely the day before Katrina hit. The team, however, was diverted to Dallas and spent more than a week there before being allowed to return home.
"The people in Quincy, Mass., knew what had happened and raised about $19,000 for those players and their families," Babin said. "Tom Moran, the coach of that team, gave the money to the families that didn't have insurance.
"The outpouring of support has been amazing," he added. "The Babe Ruth family is everywhere. We've gotten calls from Hawaii, who we played against this year, and people in Longview have called our kids. It's definitely a family. And this is a great family to be a part of."
Back on the diamond
Babin calls his 2004 World Series experience in Longview "the best one I've had in 30 years of doing this."
"I keep promising the families who had kids on that team that I'm going to call that guy (Tommy Kell) who did the chainsaw sculpture of Babe Ruth, and have him do another one for our league," Babin said. "Longview was great to us. We'll never forget it. The people there ran a first-class tournament."
Jefferson Parish took the first step in its Series repeat in Longview. The second was in Abbeville, La., which was torn apart by Hurricane Rita about a month after this year's World Series.
For Jefferson Parish to three-peat next summer, it will take more than on-field talent.
JRPD's baseball field, which also is used by local high school teams, sustained "severe damage," Babin said. Though the diamond was not flooded, light-poles were blown down, along with the entire right-field wall and the scoreboard.
"It sits there today just like it did the day after the storm," Babin said. "The Parish has been slow to respond. They have to give us permission to go out and get the work done. The Recreation Department budget is based on property values, and the assessor has lowered the property values around here. Our budget will probably be about 50 percent less than what it has been."
Babin said the league likely will experience an influx of ball players, since many of Jefferson Parish's residents have relatives living with them who've been displaced by Katrina and Rita.
"We'll have more players and a smaller budget," he said. "But we'll manage."
Babin has witnessed first-hand what the hurricanes have done to families in the area.
"I'm a bankruptcy attorney. I see people who've lost everything, literally everything, and have had to file (for bankruptcy)," he said. "It's sad to see, but I know this area will survive.
"Tell the people in Longview that we appreciate their prayers," Babin said. "Tell them the people of south Louisiana are resilient and we're not going to leave. And tell them we'd love to come and play in another World Series up there some day. Because we'll be back."
And so will that goofy grin.
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