A Childhood Legend Becomes Reds Royalty


The "Big Red Machine" of the 1970s was baseball royalty for me. So when my childhood neighbor, whom I admired and bragged about his baseball prowess, was drafted out of high school in 1978 by the Reds, my connection to the iconic franchise grew stronger. Nick Esasky was the talk of Carol Park, a small but exciting ballpark in Carol City in the northern area of Miami Dade County. I hung out a lot at Carol Park as a teen, as it was the epicenter of youth baseball in Carol City, whose high school Chiefs baseball team, also produced major league players Randy Bush, Danny Tartabull and Otis Green. The park had a very tall chainlink fence in left field to protect homes from being pelted with errantly-thrown baseballs. There were only a few 15-year-olds in the Little League program who could boast hitting long balls against that towering Fenway Park-like fence. And that's why Nick, a manchild with Big League prowess, was a Carol Park legend for me and many of my Sandlot buddies. It was of course no surprise to me that the neighborhood legend became Reds royalty.



Comments

  1. TheDigitalRaindanceMay 21, 2021 at 5:17 PM

    Nick Esasky was the first Florida high school player ever selected in the MLB amateur draft by the Cincinnati Reds and he was my childhood neighbor.

    ReplyDelete

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