Longtime Lunenburg Phillies player and manager Joe Ruth has died at the age of 68. (Sentinel & Enterprise File Photo)
He’s listed at 5-foot-8 and 165 pounds on the Lunenburg Phillies website, but regardless of size, Joe Ruth has been among the titans of Central Mass. baseball for five decades, a giant in the sporting world.
The longtime Phillies second baseman and manager helped bring the men’s league franchise to Lunenburg in 1984 from its old home in Pepperell, competing in several organizations before landing for good in the former Central Massachusetts Baseball League which is now known as the Central New England Baseball Association (CNEBA).
In his younger years, Ruth was an infielder with a keen eye at the plate. In more recent years, as age and illnesses took their tolls, he settled into his role as a highly-respected manager and team builder. To talk baseball with him was to see into the soul of Ruth, who’s life was tied to the sport.
The Lunenburg Phillies legend died Sunday at the age of 68.
An Oakmont Regional and North Adams State graduate, Ruth worked for 17 years at Rollstone Bank and Trust in Fitchburg, reaching senior vice president before retiring in 2020, but impacted hundreds of lives on the diamond. A high school hockey and baseball player, Ruth’s passion for the latter never faded, even in the years when his body wouldn’t let him compete on the field.
I, like many others who knew Joe, spent countless hours talking about sports and life with him. At first, our relationship was merely based on my profession. I’d cover a game, I’d talk to Joe and I’d call it a day.
As the years passed, he became less of a professional contact and more of a friend. We’d talk at length about upcoming seasons for preview pieces, but those conversations would stray to how life was going. How our families were doing. Outlooks for professional sports teams we followed.
It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary to begin talking about the projected starting outfield for the Phillies only to drift off and discuss what the Boston Bruins needed to do to succeed in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. We’d go from discussing infielders to discussing our respective children without missing a beat.
As long as you enjoyed baseball to some degree, you’d enjoy talking to Joe. Sure, he was a man who could talk at length about nearly anything, but America’s pastime had a hold on his heart that only his family could compete with.
There was a time years ago when Joe’s son Andy was a Phillie and to hear the former talk of those times in recent years, the pride was evident, even if it wasn’t as obvious while the two were teammates. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and nostalgia was one of Joe’s specialties. To have played with his son was certainly as big a highlight in his career as any championship the elder Ruth ever won.
It’s a shame Joe Ruth never wrote a book chronicling his years in what many would refer to as “semi-pro” baseball, but in reality was simply a way for men of all ages to hold onto their childhood dreams of baseball glory. That’s not a knock on anyone playing at any level; Ruth’s stories of greatness and failures on the diamond were captivating and would rival some MLB tales.
As a player, a manager and president of the CNEBA, Ruth had seen it all. Yet he never wanted to stop. There was no opportunity to walk away that was alluring enough to draw him away from the game he loved.
He retired from his job in the real world. He became a grandfather, a loving and proud one, at that. And baseball still pulled him back in every winter, preparing for a season with players who became his second family. Players he spent as much time with as his actual family when the summer months rolled around.
And he loved every minute of it. Even when he’d complain about scheduling conflicts and trying to field enough good players for a team, I’d ask the same question and get the same answer every time.
“Why don’t you stop doing it? Has that ever crossed your mind?”
“What else am I going to do?,” he’d reply. “I love it. If it was just about the baseball, I probably would have given up on it a long time ago…. It’s about bonding with these guys and playing the game.”
In addition to spending endless hours focused on the Phillies, Ruth had helped coach at North Middlesex Regional under Jim Beauregard in recent years. And he beamed with pride at Polar Park last June as he watched his high school alma mater capture a Division 3 championship as Oakmont secured its first state title.
“As much of a great baseball guy as Joe was, he was an even better person. Once you were a Phillie, you were always a Phillie to Joe and he would do anything he could to help you both on and off the diamond,” Oakmont baseball head coach and former Phillie Tim Caouette said in an email. “I’m sure that 95% of us former and current Phillies have stories about Joe going out of his way to do something memorable or special for us off the field. Whether it was a congratulatory card sent through the mail, a goofy baseball related gift, or an impromptu random lunch seemingly out of nowhere, he was just so great at reminding you that he cared. We are all really going to miss that.”
Who will take the reins of the Phillies and the CNEBA in the immediate future will be a discussion for another time. There will certainly be well deserved tributes to Ruth. And things definitely won’t be the same without him.
