LARRY LARKIN Column

His nickname is "Popeye." A better handle could be "The Round Man of Sound."

Jimmy Pitts is always talking. Baseball is his favorite topic and after serving as manager or coach in more than 2,400 games, he knows a little bit about the game.

"When I finally realized I wasn't going to be a major leaguer, I decided to do the next best thing. If I couldn't play, I wanted to coach,” Pitts said last week while sitting in the stands at Claremore's Legion Field.

What started out to be a 10-, 15-minute question and answer session turned into a two-hour discussion. This man likes to talk. And he likes to talk about the Rogers County Rangers, for whom he serves as a coach.

A resident of Bixby, Pitts came on the Claremore scene three summers ago when the Rangers were formed. His baseball travels have spread from Tahlequah to Weatherford, from Bartlesville to Durant. And, that's just in Oklahoma. It doesn't include his travels to Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas and Tennessee.

"When I was approached about getting a team together here, they asked if Jimmy would be coming with me," team organizer Todd Bingham said. "I said, ‘where I go, he goes.’ We have been a team a long time."

The Pitts-Bingham pairing goes back more than 24 years. Throw in Todd's father, Ray, and it is even longer. Ray Bingham was responsible for helping Jimmy get his first coaching position.

A life-long bachelor, Pitts will tell people he has a huge family. All the boys he has coached through the years are part of his family. While he might need a moment or two to come up with a first name, he has no trouble remembering who played second base, or caught, or played any of the other positions on any given team he has coached through the years.

And his former players and opposing players remember Jimmy Pitts.

"I was at a Chicago Cubs game a few years ago and this young man taps me on the shoulder. He wanted to know if I coached in Oklahoma. He said his team had played my team once in Tulsa," Pitts said.

Born in Oklahoma City in 1951, Pitts graduated from Tulsa East Central in 1970. He was a catcher on the 3A state championship team as a senior.

While his playing skills may have not allowed him to advance past the high school level, he wasn't finished with baseball.

He’s still not finished.