'Doc' Yallaly chosen for Spirt of America Award

John "Doc" Yallaly grew up on the south side of Cape Girardeau during the Great Depression. Nobody had much of anything. Every day the old lady across the street on Hanover put a dime in his hand, and he went to the store to buy her three wieners. "That poor woman was living like that," he said, his commanding voice softening.

At least Yallaly had baseball and was good at it. When he wasn't playing ball or tagging after his veterinarian father -- the source of his nickname -- he watched out for his younger brother, Vernon, who was what people now call developmentally disabled.

All this added up to a life coaching baseball and to a weakness for people who need help. Forty years of managing the Cape Girardeau American Legion team as a volunteer and his volunteer work for the Missouri Veterans Home and VIP Industries are major reasons Yallaly is the winner of the Southeast Missourian newspaper's first Spirit of America Award. He was chosen over five other nominated finalists as the best representive of what America stands for.

Ceremony on Friday

The award will be presented to Yallaly in a ceremony at 9 p.m. Friday during the Libertyfest activities in downtown Cape Girardeau. The organization that nominated him, American Legion Auxiliary Unit 63, will receive $1,000.

In his 71 years, Yallaly has received many awards and trophies through the years, including one from the United Way and induction into the Southeast Missouri Amateur Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981.

"I've had so many good things happen to me," he said. "It almost embarrasses me."

A near-obsessive itch to do could be one reason, whether it's volunteering or just mowing his lawn.

"When I've got something to do, it's got to be done," he said. "It's going to be done. There's no quit 'til I do it."

After graduating from Central High School in 1950, Yallaly played for the Jackson Giants, a good semipro team. He joined the Army in 1953 and made the baseball team his last year at Camp Gordon in Georgia. Joe Durham, who later played with the Orioles and Cardinals, was on the same team.

Making the Army baseball team "helped me so much, when I got out I wanted to help somebody else," he said.

After the service he became a lineman for Southwestern Bell and started managing the American Legion team. He and Barbara Criddle married in 1963 and built a house on Haddock Street because it was not far from Capaha Park. Kathryn, their daughter, was the team's bat girl for a couple of seasons. She tried out for the softball team in high school but quit after a couple of games. "I said, I'd rather be at the Legion game," she recalled.

Kathryn is now an occupational therapist at St. Francis Medical Center.

Friends through baseball

Managing the baseball team required much more time than the practices and the 50 games the team played a year. Barbara attended the home games, though she confesses to having no great love for baseball. "The great thing was all the friends we made through baseball."

She thinks her husband is "an awful good person. Not only does he have faith in God, he loves people and loves to help."

Her husband said, "I can't understand how people can waste time and not do some good for somebody."

Yallaly is not a saint, however. Legendary coach Lou Muegge kicked him off the Central High School baseball team six games into his senior year for playing with a semipro team at the same time. Yallaly wasn't deceitful, just ignorant of the rules. "It hurt me bad," he said.

He also has what he admits is a bad habit: chewing tobacco. He got hooked when he started courting Barbara at the beginning of the 1960s. Her father chewed Mammoth Cave, the same brand Yallaly still chews.

In 1985, Yallaly retired from Southwestern Bell. He retired as manager of the American Legion team in 1996. He is still "connected to" the team and attends the games.

Still a mentor

Many who manage youth sports do so because their children are playing and get out once the children grow up. That wasn't Yallaly's reason.

"He did it out of love and an enjoyment for the game," said Mark Hogan, head baseball coach at Southeast Missouri State University. "He's got as much passion for baseball as he ever had."

Hogan played on Yallaly's 1970-71 American Legion teams. They have remained close, and Hogan considers him a great mentor. "I still feel like a little kid when I talk to Doc," he said.

Everybody but Barbara calls him Doc. She is the American Legion Auxiliary home representative, covering a district from Ste. Genevieve, Mo., south to the Arkansas border. If he is credited with more than 1,100 volunteer hours at the Missouri Veterans Home, helping out with bingo games, taking vets shopping and fishing, Barbara probably has put in 7,000 hours, he said.

Looking back, he thinks life has improved greatly for elderly people and those with handicaps. "You used to be an outcast when were retarded. You sat them in the back of the church if you took them."

Yallaly started helping out at VIP Industries before his brother Vernon went to work there. Vernon is now deceased, but Yallaly remains on the board of directors.

"I'm just a blue-collar, tobacco-chewing south-side boy with a heart to help those who can't help themselves," he said.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182