The Alabama Florida League Web Site

Giving Chase

Players love coach Chase Riddle so much they name their kids after him

BY CHRISTA TURNER, Staff Writer with the Columbus Ledger-Journal

TROY, Ala.
Lodged in the back of a hallway closet in Chase Riddle's house is a bag of baseballs. Balls that were surely white and crisp when written upon in fresh ink are now stained dark with age and barely legible. Most document championships Riddle won as either a player or manager. The smattering of words you can still read weave the tapestry of Riddle's rich baseball life. Riddle's impact as a coach is measured by the number of hard-nosed, intense, competitive players who learned their style from him. "His teams took his personality," said Mark Smartt, assistant baseball coach at Troy State. "It was the single common trait of those two teams that won national championships. That came directly from him." Smartt played on two Troy State Division II national championship teams (1986, 1987) under Riddle, then later coached alongside him. There are coaches who are well-known, liked and respected, and then there are coaches who seemingly are more. Bear Bryant was one of those. So is Riddle, Smartt says. There are about a dozen former TSU players whose sons bear the name Chase, including Smartt's. "I still remember the first night I met him," Smartt said. "In Southeast Alabama, he was Bear Bryant." Troy State named its baseball field after him, and he was inducted into the Alabama Hall of Fame in 2000. Saturday will bring even more accolades. Riddle is one of five new inductees into the Chattahoochee Valley Hall of Fame. Being recognized in his hometown is even more special, said Riddle, a standout athlete at Jordan High School in the early 1940s. "It's an honor going into the Hall of Fame in your hometown where you played," Riddle said. "I remember playing the sandlots there. That's how Columbus used to be. They had pretty good ballplayers -- R.G. Jones, Elmer Riddle, who is my uncle, Bubba Ball." Riddle, 78, played on and managed teams in the 40s and 50s and developing his philosophy proved easy. In that era, manager-players made more money than those who just played and Riddle felt obliged to justify that. "I wouldn't ask my players to do what I wouldn't do myself," Riddle said. "When you went on the field of play, there wasn't a player on my ball clubs -- and anyone who played in that era will tell you -- that played harder than I did or made any more effort than I did. They couldn't afford to loaf." When Riddle's body couldn't keep up with the demand of the game, he burned his energy trying to outsmart opposing managers. An organizational change of philosophy aided that. When Riddle began playing, organizations wanted managers who could also play. Later, they wanted managers who devoted their entire time to teaching the game and developing players. Riddle embraced that, becoming one of the best teachers of the game. He spent 25 years in the St. Louis Cardinals organization as a player, manager and scout. A graduate of Troy State, he quickly seized the opportunity to coach the Trojans. "That's the reason I enjoyed coaching so much -- I didn't play anymore," Riddle said. "I had more time to sit on that bench and try to figure out the other team. I loved to teach, loved to work with the players. "I got up every morning and I didn't have to say, 'I've got to go to work.' I got up and looked forward to going over to Troy State." Riddle's 25 years in professional baseball proved invaluable in the college coaching ranks. It provided instant credibility, Smartt said. "You believed what he told you because he had done it all and seen it all," Smartt said. Smartt knows how hard it is to keep athletes motivated and winning, which makes him respect his teacher even more. "As a player, he made you believe," Smartt said. "Every day, he made you believe you were a good player and that we were going to win the game no matter what the situation was." Winning the two national championships punctuated Riddle's outstanding record as a manager and coach. Although Riddle won championships in professional baseball, he found something different about winning at the collegiate level.
Watching his players jump and hug each other after winning the national titles ranks among his best memories."You set a goal and we were able to meet those goals," Riddle said. "You think, 'This is what it's all about those guys running out there and jumping up and hugging each other, thinking of what they had to do to get to that point where they could do that.' " Riddle excelled in baseball, basketball and football while at Jordan. He led the Red Jackets to a state basketball title in 1943 but left school that following summer to pursue professional baseball. He played one summer before joining the U.S. Navy and serving in the Pacific during World War II. It was three years before he played baseball again, but he picked up where he left off. He sandwiched getting a degree at Troy State and playing three sports there with baseball in the summers. But meeting a certain young lady from Ozark, Ala., likely changed his path. Wanting to be near the former Betty Clark, also a student at Troy State, Riddle left the player-only ranks to become a player-manager. "I met that young lady," Riddle said. "I didn't really want to go off and play anymore -- I really didn't." Riddle accepted a job as a player-manager with Ozark in the Alabama-Florida league, then moved into the St. Louis Cardinals organization doing the same thing. Eventually, Riddle became just a manager and then a scout, changing his job to accommodate the needs of his family. Typically, each change resulted in less travel for Riddle. "We had children, but when school was out, we'd join him, wherever he was," Betty Riddle said. "It was fun. But as the children began to get older, they reached the point where they didn't want to travel as much. That's when he went into scouting."
Players like Hall of Famer Steve Carlton, Jose Cruz, Pedro Borbon and Luis Melendez, to name a few, can be grateful Riddle liked what he saw on the diamond. Riddle's legacy abides in the way he taught his players to carry themselves, in the way they played the game. "If I played, I was going to be the very best I could be," Riddle said. That bag of baseballs shows he succeeded.