31 Jul 2024 Mark DeJesus’s love for baseball and country rounds out his life

By KD Reep

On a rainy Friday afternoon, Mark DeJesus of Jacksonville waits to see if his great-grandson’s baseball game will be called. The 4-year-old is following in some considerable familial footsteps: his uncle, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather all pursued baseball (and softball) throughout their lives.

“My grandson in Morrilton is just getting started, but when I wasn’t much older than him, I played stickball in the streets of New York City,” DeJesus said. “We took it seriously, too. Sometimes, girls would want to play. We’d say, ‘We’re not playing with girls.’ They’d say, ‘What if we make a bet? If y’all win, you keep the money.’ We were all about that, but then they would win!”

He laughs at the sweet memory, going on to say the girls who played with him as children were tough as nails and just as talented as the boys he would play with in his youth.

“If I had a girl who loved baseball, I’d be tickled pink if she wanted to play,” he said. “I think it’s great there are more girls and women interested in playing ball now than ever before.”

As a high school graduate in 1955, DeJesus had three opportunities ahead: join the military, accept a baseball contract or attend Queens College on a scholarship. He says he gave up the scholarship, hoping the baseball contract would emerge. When that didn’t happen, he joined the United States Air Force, serving in base supply until 1965. He was the first in his family to serve in the military.

“Back in those days, you got a four-year commitment when you joined the Air Force,” he explained. “I had learned to work from the time I was 10 years old in New York, and being in base supply stretched from four years to 10 before I got out the first time.”

DeJesus pursued a civilian career in sales for Metropolitan Life Insurance, which he did for almost a decade before an opportunity to rejoin the military arose.

“I was at the Arkansas State Fair, and the Air Force recruiters were there,” he said. “We were talking about baseball and softball, and they said they were looking for people to fill positions in base supply. It worked out that I could rejoin at the same rank I was when I left, and I volunteered to be a baseball and softball coach and umpire while in the Air National Guard this time.”

After retiring as a master sergeant when he was 60, DeJesus continued to play softball, moving to Florida and California to play in leagues with senior men.

“Basically, I played infielder positions,” DeJesus said. “Anything in the infield except the catcher—first, second or third base, shortstop. I love first base, but I can do whatever position needs to be done. In these leagues, you’re playing against guys within a five-year age range.”

It was while in a California league that DeJesus got to travel to Japan and Taiwan to compete. “Taiwan had not lost the championship in seven years,” he said. “The U.S. knocked them out in the bottom of the seventh inning in a championship, and we had one heck of a party. I was 78 at that time, and I thought, you know, I’d had enough fun.”

Today, DeJesus, who is 87, lives in Jacksonville and watches his son, who is 63, play softball as well as his great-grandson. He says baseball was his whole way of life when he was not working in the Air Force, Air National Guard or in insurance, and he notes how men older than him still pursue the game.

“The Florida league allows men as old as 100 if they feel healthy enough, but I’m retired from everything but spectating,” he said. “These men’s baseball players get dressed up in a white shirt and bow tie and shorts, and they hit the ball and run to the first base. These guys are 90! And when they get to first base, somebody else takes over and starts running for them. It’s a miracle how these guys are still playing and having fun. That’s the main thing—we all have fun.”