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34. Doug Flynn
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164 Chapter 34. Doug Flynn Gregory H. Wolf “This game is tough to play,” said eleven-year Major League infielder Doug Flynn in an interview with the author.1 Progressing through the Cincinnati Reds system in the early 1970s, Flynn was a utility man on the Reds’ championship teams in 1975 and 1976 before being traded to the New York Mets in 1977. A Gold Glove winner in 1980, Flynn established a reputation as one of the best- fielding second basemen in the National League. His career batting average in the Major Leagues was just .238. “Hitting never came easy for me on any level,” said Flynn, who spent fourteen years in professional baseball. “I figured that if I’m gonna make it, I’m gonna make it with my defense.” Robert Douglas Flynn was born on April 18, 1951, in Lexington, Kentucky, to Robert and Ella (Ritchey) Flynn. His father, who later became a state senator , played for the Hazard (Kentucky) Bombers, a Class D team in the Brooklyn Dodgers’ farm system, and for the semipro Lexington Hustlers, the first integrated baseball team in the South.2 His mother played second base in fast-pitch softball leagues in the late 1940s before giving birth to three children, Doug, Brad, and Melanie.3 “I had so many influences in my career,” said Flynn of growing up with baseball and attending his father’s semipro games. “My dad was certainly the most influential.” Small but agile, he played shortstop in Little League and in the Pony, Colt, and Thoroughbred Leagues before switching to second base while attending Bryan Station High School in Lexington, where he also played football and excelled in basketball. After graduating in 1969 Flynn played a second year of Connie Mack baseball and then was surprised to be offered a dual basketball-baseball scholarship to the University of Kentucky. Playing for legendary coach Joe B. Hall on the Wildcats’ freshman basketball team, Flynn was an excellent shooter, but at 5 feet 8 and 145 pounds at that time he had a limited future on the hardwood. After an abbreviated and admittedly poor spring with the baseball team, Flynn withdrew from the university, played baseball in the semipro Bluegrass League in Lexington, and matriculated at Somerset Community College in Somerset, Kentucky , which did not field a baseball team. Flynn’s rise from obscurity to the Major Leagues less than four years later had an unusual start: “Some age g ab r h 2b 3b hr tb rbi bb so bav obp slg sb gdp hbp 24 89 127 17 34 7 0 1 44 20 11 13 .268 .324 .346 3 5 0 A good-field no-hit infielder, Doug Flynn played eleven years with this skill set. doug flynn 165 friends woke me up to go to a camp.” It was a Cincinnati Reds tryout camp in Somerset in the summer of 1971. “We got to the tryout and we realized, Does anyone have a glove or a pair of spikes? One kid did.” The camp was run by Chet Montgomery, the Reds’ chief scout, and sorted through six hundred attendees. “I was there in a pair of cutoffs and a tank top,” said Flynn, who had grown to 5 feet 11 and 160 pounds during his year away from baseball . After two additional tryout camps (in Frankfort , Kentucky, and at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Stadium ), Flynn worked out for Montgomery back in Lexington and signed with him as an amateur free agent for a $2,500 bonus in August 1971. Flynn was assigned to the Reds’ Gulf Coast League affiliate in Florida to start spring training in 1972. His willingness to move to third base resulted in a transfer to the Tampa Tarpons, managed by Russ Nixon, in the Class A Florida State League. “For the first batter, [Nixon] yelled, ‘Come in,’ and for the second, ‘Move over, move over,’” Flynn said of his first game at third. “After the third batter he realized that I had never played third before.” In fact, Flynn hadn’t played much baseball in the previous two years and admitted that he didn’t know what to expect. Struggling at the plate (he batted .211 in 349 at bats for Tampa), Flynn recalled that Nixon was patient with him and played him at shortstop , second base, and third base.4 “Am I wasting my time?” Flynn asked his manager near the end of the season. “Because if...