No record, but decades of memories at J.O. Christian Field
STORRS — Joan Penders arrived at J.O. Christian Field with her husband, Jim, for the final time Saturday morning. She took her familiar position in the stands behind home plate.
Either way, there was going to be history on this day.
“Every home game for four years when Jimmy played and every home game the 23 years Jimmy has coached,” Joan Penders said. “You can do the math.”
That’s at least 400 times Joan Penders, who’ll be married to the love of her life 50 years next month, has watched UConn play baseball at a field that will be no more. That’s at least 400 times Joan has cheered on her son.
With threatening weather headed into Connecticut, the Mother’s Day series finale with South Florida was moved up one day. That meant a doubleheader Saturday starting at 11 a.m. The second game would be the last one at J.O. Christian, which opened in 1968 and long ago outlived its charm.
As Joan’s son, the terrific 16-year head coach of the Huskies, likes to say, the memories will stay. It was the field that needed to go. And it will be demolished next month. Elliot Ballpark will open up across Jim Calhoun Way next season.
There was one final piece of history to be made in JOC’s curtain call. With the Huskies’ rousing comeback victory over USF on Friday, Penders was in position to
tie and surpass Andy Baylock as the winningest coach in program history. Neither happened.
Pat Winkel would hook a home run inside the right field pole in the eighth, but UConn would leave the bases loaded in the ninth and fall in the opener 3-2. The Huskies would lose the second game, 3-1. This is the 13th time Jim Penders has won 30 games in a season, but the Huskies fell to 10-11 in the AAC against one of the conferences weaker teams and now they’ve got a lot of work to do if they want to make the NCAA Tournament. A very bad day on the field.
“The last thing we want to do was to send JOC out like this,” Penders said. “It was such a terrible offensive day. It was tough to watch the bats. That’s the first part.
“As much as I’m ready to move across the street, this place means a lot to a lot of people and will always hold special memories for me, too … even if there were always crazy bounces, the wind was always blowing and it was cold. It was ours.”
The last game Penders played at JOC? Mother’s Day 1994, and he homered in the first inning.
“I remember telling my mom, ‘This is for you,’ ” Penders said. “A fond memory.”
If it hadn’t been for the coming rain, of course, Joan, the mother of three sons, would have been here on her 48th Mother’s Day.
“Oh, yes, I’ve been here many Mother’s Days,” Joan said.
“I’m mandated to be here,” Jim said, laughing. “She’s not.”
After the final out, the players and alumni would line the field. Penders spoke. Baylock spoke. Fans were given small jars to take some dirt as a keepsake.
Penders talked about how Baylock laid out the field, planted all the trees outside the left-field fence. When he’d come to UConn games as a youngster he remembered those trees were only up to his knees. They tower over JOC now.
“We used to just have a batting cage where the (baseball) building is now,” Baylock said. “My (late wife Barbara) used to hang out near the fence in that area. When Jim was little he hit one out and hit Mama Bear. She picked it up and told him, ‘You better enroll at UConn.’ And he did.”
Baylock finished 556492-8. Penders is 555-388-5. The Huskies finished 541287-8 at JOC.
“I hope Jimmy sets the record so high that who ever comes after him will never reach it,” Baylock said. “He was a great leader, student, captain, ballplayer. I’m so proud what he has done with the program.”
UConn has had only four coaches since the 1930s. The first was Christian.
“Each has lifted the level of the program. This guy (Penders) has taken it was up here and is going to keep it here.”
Joan was never at the old park on the south end of UConn campus. She met her husband Jim in their hometown of Stratford as he recovered from a lifethreatening beaning that fractured his skull during a UConn game at Maryland.
Jim’s dad Jim, the town’s recreation director, used to hire a senior girl at Stratford High each year to do part-time secretarial work.
“Everyone wanted the position, because Mr. Penders was such a great guy,” Joan said. “You got to sit, do your homework and answer the phone. It was a win-win.”
It was September of 1963 when the phone rang. Joan Cholko, a whip-smart cheerleader from one of Stratford’s outstanding athletic families, picked up. Mr. Penders’ son asked her to open the door to gym.
“That was the beginning of our friendship,” Joan said. “It took another three years to ask me out and another three years to get married.”
Joan went on to Central Connecticut. Jim returned to UConn. He and his brother Tom, the longtime college basketball coach, would play on the only UConn team to advance to the College World Series in 1965. Baylock was at Jim and Joan’s wedding in 1969. The Penders family settled into Vernon. Joan’s husband coached East Catholic baseball for four decades.
Penders served as Baylock’s assistant and when Blaylock retired in 2003 he told athletic director he didn’t just want to be a college baseball coach, he wanted to be the UConn baseball coach. He got the job and he, while he is still hunting for the first trip to Omaha, he has become a school treasure. He’s only 47, but already his teams have not only been regular visitors to the NCAA Tournament, they play hard, they play disciplined, they go to the school. Some get to the majors. Some like George Springer becomes a World Series MVP.
“It’s funny, because this new field has been coming for many years and last year we had the inkling that would be the final year of J.O. Christian,” Joan said. “So I took all kind of pictures the last game thinking it was all over.”
It wasn’t.
“So I’m not taking any pictures today,” Joan said. “I don’t want to jinx anything.”
The heavy machinery is already digging into the hill across the street. It’s going to happen this time and there will be all the baseball and fan amenities, most important field turf to handle the unpredictable New England springs.
“My husband said it would be more emotional for him had he played here,” Joan, 72, said. “But we have had so many great memories and made so many lifelong friends. It’s where we watched our son literally grow into a man on this field. Think about it. So it’s all good.
“But I will say I’m looking forward to a seat with a back and a toilet. I said before I’m 75, could I have a toilet? I’ve used the Porta Potty here enough.”