For the love of the game

BY: TRACEY JAGNEAUX
Sports Editor

If someone goes to the Evangeline Parish Recreational complex during baseball season and asks to talk to Mr. Robert Wayne Fontenot, they would probably get some very strange looks.
If someone goes to the Evangeline Parish Recreational complex during baseball season and asks to talk to Mr. “B.J.” Fontenot, then they would be pointed toward the most outgoing, gregarious person in the stands.
For the past 40 plus years, Fontenot has been a part of the Dixie Youth organization, either as a coach, umpire or just a tremendous fan.
Because of his larger than life personality, Fontenot is known throughout the south, as he has taken part in a considerable number of Dixie Youth World Series, either as a coach, umpire or fan.
Fontenot’s first taste of organized baseball came in 1954. While sitting on his grandfather’s porch one Sunday afternoon, Fontenot was asked if he was going to play baseball by his “PaPa”.
Apparently, there was an ad in the paper, The Weekly, to sign up for the Ville Platte Little League Association, the first organized league in Ville Platte. Fontenot was hesitant at first, mainly because he did not have a glove.
“I told my grandfather, I didn’t know if I wanted to play,” said Fontenot reminiscing. “I had never owned a glove or a bat. In fact I would use the old, broken shovel handles from my dad’s plumbing shop and use it to hit rocks with. So my grandfather asked my daddy and he went and bought me a glove at G. Ardoin’s. The only problem was that it was a right-handers glove and I was left-handed. I was picked on the Bees and the coaches told me to go home and ask my dad to buy me a left-handers glove, which was very rare in those days.”
Fontenot’s father did buy him that glove, and thus started the love of the game that lasts today. Fontenot played Little League until he was too old for that age group.
He then played in the Babe Ruth league when he was 13 and 14 years old. Fontenot got to play on the high school level starting in eighth grade and also played on the Ville Platte American Legion team as a teenager.
Fontenot shared a number of memories about those days of innocence, but two of those memories stand out for their innovativeness.
“Mr. Billy Pucheu, one of my first coaches, loved golf,” said Fontenot. “He would bring his golf clubs to practice and would hit wedges to us at practice and that is how we learned to catch fly balls. For batting practice, Mr. Wilbur Ardoin’s wife, Ms. Gloria, would leave from work at the Evangeline Bank, roll up her skirt and pitch to us. Let me tell you something, she was good at it.”
After Fontenot finished his baseball playing career, his love of the game never wavered, especially for the New York Yankees, a team he came to love as a young man.
“When CBS bought the Yankees, we would watch them on Saturday and Sunday on our black and white television; that is where I fell in love with them,” stated Fontenot. “I got to go to Yankee stadium one time and could only watch one and a third innings, because it rained so much. As much as I love to watch the Yankees, I think I love watching Dixie Youth more.”
Fontenot’s first experience in coaching Dixie Youth came in 1972, when by chance he found a spot as an assistant coach.
“One day I passed by the Elk’s practice behind Sacred Heart church and one of my good friends, Charlie Bordelon, was practicing the team,” said Fontenot. “So I stopped and asked if he needed some help. He told me to come back the next day and that’s how I became an assistant coach. It was me and Mr. Cliff Wagley and Charlie.”
Fontenot took over the Elk’s in 1976 and won the league. However, he could not be the head coach of the all-star team because of a rule that stated first year head coaches could not be the all-star head coach.
Still, Fontenot got to attend his first World Series that year, a trip he would make on 30 more occasions.
During his tenure as a coach in the league, Fontenot would leave at the end of practice and umpire the game being played at City Park. It is here that Fontenot began his officiating career. He completed his tenure as coach in 1980 but continued to umpire, a passion that would bring him to 16 straight World Series, from 1991 to 2006.
“I was fortunate enough to umpire in a number of Dixie Youth World Series games,” said Fontenot. “I got to call in several championship games, and have a number of great memories, especially the brotherhood with the other umpires. We did not get paid very much, but for me it was not about the money, it was about the kids. You know in 42 years, I never threw anyone out of a game.”
Even if Fontenot is not active in the league anymore, one fact is indisputable; you will still see him at the ballpark, supporting the kids and conversing about his passion, baseball. Why you ask? Most definitely for the love of the game.