That Time I Met Sixto Lezcano

Note: This is a guest post from Christopher Zantow

I grew up watching Sixto Lezcano patrol the outfield for the Milwaukee Brewers in the late 1970’s.  My Dad started to take me to games at Milwaukee County Stadium in 1978 and liked to sit along the first base line, so we often got to see Sixto make a great defensive play close up.  He quickly became my favorite player on a team of stars.  I really wanted to meet him and get an autograph, but as a child it never happened, despite me trying to get into the front row of the box seats where he’d occasionally sign stuff before games.

My Dad took me to the concession stand at one of the games we attended and told me to pick out a souvenir.  I really wanted a Sixto Lezcano poster, and that notion totally shocked Dad.  I think he assumed I’d get either the Paul Molitor or Robin Yount poster.  Sixto’s poster did have the pre-signed stamped autograph at the bottom, so it did look reasonably legit.  He graced my wall for a few years until I got “too cool” for that sort of thing and rock band posters went up in his place.

Most kids try to imitate their baseball heroes at bat.  I didn’t try to imitate Sixto at the plate.  Instead, I did my best to play like him in the outfield.  It was hard to hold a candle to his energy though.  The one thing I could imitate was Brewers PA announcer Bob Betts when Sixto came to bat: “Right fielder Sixxxxxxtooooooo Lezcaaaannnnoooooooo!!!”

Hitting grand slams on Opening Day is the stuff of legend, and Sixto did it in 1978 and 1980 to set a major league record.  He had already hit a homer earlier in the 1980 opener before he delivered the walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the ninth inning.  The image of him on TV circling the bases with his arms outstretched over his head is etched forever in my mind.  I often think of that moment when I hear today’s players brag about how hard they play the game.  It just seemed like a natural thing for Sixto Lezcano, and not something he talked about too much.  If you don’t remember how good he could be, go back and look at his 1979 stats when he finished in the top ten of a lot of offensive categories and won a gold glove.  Hard to argue with 28 homers, 101 RBI’s, and a .321 batting average.

Naturally I was bummed when Sixto was traded after the 1980 season, but couldn’t complain when the package brought Ted Simmons, Pete Vuckovich, and Rollie Fingers to Milwaukee.  Sixto became one of the few ex-Brewers that I followed and continued to root for throughout his career.  Unfortunately, the injuries that started up in Milwaukee before he was traded continued to plague him for the remainder of his time in the big leagues.  After his playing days ended I lost track of him (it was the pre-internet age) but always figured he’d make a good coach.  Later on when I had internet and could look him up, I found out he had in fact gone into coaching.  But I never gave meeting him a second thought – at least until 2007 when he came to Miller Park for “Cerveceros Day.”

The Brewers had started the special Hispanic heritage day a couple seasons earlier, and usually brought a former player to Miller Park that could be part of the celebration.  The team wears their alternate Cerveceros (Brewers in Spanish) jerseys for the game and there is often a promotional giveaway.  It just so happened to be a Chorizo (racing sausage) Bobblehead giveaway to tie in with the heritage day.  By chance I had tickets for the game that I purchased well before the promotional schedule came out.   I actually didn’t find out Sixto was the guest of honor until the day of the game, so I had no time to get his poster out of storage (yup – still have it to this day!) and try to get a “real” signature on it.

I made sure to be there in time to see Sixto participate in the pre-game ceremony on the field.  He was available in the lower level concourse after that for free autographs through the end of the first inning.  I saw the line earlier when I headed to my seat and decided to wait it out and watch the first half inning, hoping the line would go down.

By the time I got out to the autograph table the line had really gone down – and most of the inning had been played.  Some of the security people were trying to move things along and were prompting Sixto to wrap things up.  I had a ball for him to sign but instead wound up with a player card, which was fine and still made my day.  I at least got to tell Sixto thanks for a lot of great memories and snapped a photo of him before one of the security people blocked me out.  The person behind me got the last autograph.  Security led Sixto away and headed upstairs.  I assumed he was going to spend the second inning on the air with Bob Uecker – which is pretty much a given anytime an old school player returns to Milwaukee.

Despite the themed day, the Chorizo did not win the sausage race.  The Brew Crew won the game by a 4-3 score and had a 51-40 record after the victory.  The pennant race was heating up and the Brewers found themselves in first place at that point of the season.  All of that was secondary to me as I finally got to meet the first baseball player I really looked up to – Sixto Lezcano.

Have you met one of your baseball heroes from the 1980s? I want to hear about it! Click here for details and tell me your story.

ABOUT CHRISTOPHER ZANTOW: By day, Chris is a writer of training and resource materials.  By night he’s finishing edits on a historical book about the Milwaukee Brewers. The book covers the backstory of events that led to the Braves moving to Atlanta, and Bud Selig’s fight to bring baseball back to Milwaukee through numerous setbacks and disappointments and the early years of the new Milwaukee franchise. He blogs about the Brewers and can also be found on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.