Lenny Yochim worked for the Pittsburgh Pirates when they beat the Baltimore Orioles to win the World Series in 1971.
And he was there eight years later when the Pirates beat the Orioles again.
And he was home in the River Ridge section of New Orleans watching his Saints march over the Indianapolis Colts to their first ever Super Bowl win.
“You can’t believe how big it is down here, can’t fathom it,” said Yochim, 81. “Saints fans are like a cult, they stuck with this team through thick and thin. The city of Pittsburgh can’t compare with this.
“This town has so much history and experience with Mardi Gras and celebration, it knows how to celebrate, I mean every guy on the street knows how to celebrate.”
Pirate lifer
Yochim, who pitched in the Pirates system 8 1/2 years, made the majors for 12 games, then worked as an area scout, national crosschecker, major-league scout and senior adviser for player personnel, was with the Pirates for 44 1/2 seasons.
“After the win, Bourbon street was packed like Mardi Gras, maybe better behaved,” Yochim said Monday afternoon. “I’m watching the players get off the plane, let me turn the TV down a touch.”
He lives five miles from the airport, less than five miles from the Saints training camp or as he says: “Far enough from the lakefront and the 17 street canal that we didn’t get affected by Katrina.
“We’re re-building. Places are coming back.”
The New Orleans area was the birthplace of the likes of Hall of Famers Mel Ott and Teddy Lyons, plus major-league stars Will Clark, Mel Parnell, Rusty Staub, Vida Blue, Joe Adcock and Lee Smith.
Add to that list former Minnesota Twins’ Randy Bush, an assistant general manager with the Chicago Cubs. He and wife Cathy were out of their house, 15 minutes from the Superdome, for three weeks after Katrina, due to a power outage.
“The neat thing you can’t understate is how much that (Super Bowl win) has meant to the community,” Bush said from Chicago. “I give all that credit to Sean Payton and (Drew) Brees, who came after the hurricane. They understood the damage, they explained what the team meant to the community.
“The team immediately got involved. It was more than Sunday escape rather ‘you guys are involved.’ There wasn’t the usual detachment how players were above the community. They had a unique and closeness to it.”
Brees, who according to Yochim wears No. 9 as a tribute to Ted Williams, has a foundation in the city. He’s not a figurehead and will live in New Orleans when he retires.
Payton has shown a 20-minute clip of the hurricane’s devastation to his players, reminding them “we’re playing for a whole community.”
Cathy Bush was in New Orleans watching the game at a neighbours. Randy was in Chicago. Their son Jason, 24, watched the game nearby with friends.
“Jason texted around midnight: ‘Dad am on Bourbon St., ran into mom.’”
Mel Didier, new Blue Jays senior advisor of player development, a true Rajun Cajun, is a member of the Louisiana Hall of Fame.
‘Who Dat’
“I don’t do this often but when the final gun went off I jumped up and went ‘Who Dat, Who Dat!’” Didier said Tuesday. “The city really needed this.”
Didier helped start the Expos in 1969 and will try to straighten out things in the Jays minors.
“I couldn’t get over the people in the (French) quarter Monday and Sunday, it was full,” Didier said. “Booze was flowing, I’ll tell you that Podnuh. Women, men, children, you name it, everyone was excited. The city hasn’t fully recovered, but this is a real shot in the arm.
“They have a new mayor, Mitch Landrieu, I knew his daddy, Moon, real well.
“This will be a jumping point to get this city back to where it was.”
