Isom gets elusive title
He stood along the third-base line, waiting patiently as one body, then another, and another dove on top of the heap, creating a mass of humanity. All were dressed in orange and gray.
Well, 45-year-old managers have to be careful because they are not 22-year-old players. Getting caught on the bottom of one of those celebratory piles can be dangerous.
But Jeff Isom probably felt like a little kid out there.
“That was for them,” Isom said. “They deserve it.”
It took 16 years, but Isom finally won a championship in Washington, only not in the way fans of the Wild Things would appreciate.
Now the manager of Joliet, Isom pulled all the right strings, made all the correct moves, caught a few breaks and put the capper on the Frontier League championship when the Slammers came away with a 4-2 victory over the Washington Wild Things Tuesday night at Wild Things Park. The victory gave the Slammers the all-important third win in this best-of-5 series.
While Isom avoided the maniacs on the mound, he could not escape the water-jug dousing and was an active participant in the champagne-spraying festivities that took place after all but a small group of the 2,812 fans headed for their cars. A long coaching career had finally been rewarded with a championship.
“They have such a great team,” Isom said of the Wild Things. “It could have gone either way. I’m glad it’s us.”
Isom became somewhat of a hero after becoming the Wild Things first manager in 2002. Playing to nearly packed houses at what was then Falconi Field, the team flourished.
“I have so many great memories of this place,” he said. “The two years I spent here, we had some really good teams. I loved this place.”
For the Wild Things, it was a bitter third strike. An opportunity to win a championship was again just out of reach.
The last professional baseball championship of any sort came in 1939, when the Washington Red Birds won the Class D championship of the Pennsylvania State Association, finishing with a 64-45 record.
There were no batting helmets in 1939. Teams used odd-shaped gloves and a turf field was something on which cows could graze.
Seventy-nine years is a long time to wait for a championship, especially when the Wild Things came so close two other times.
They lost in 2007, when the Windy City Thunderbolts came back from a two-game deficit to defeat the Wild Things, and in 2002, when the Richmond Roosters became the first team to win back-to-back titles.
To mark that occasion, and an outstanding managerial stay in Washington, Isom was honored by the organization with a canvas poster that still hangs in the stadium.
It’s a delicious irony that Isom is now the manager of the Joliet Slammers.
“You never really know what’s going to happen,” said Isom. “I told the league commissioner (Bill Lee) before the game in the dugout that I had my lineup posted. I told him, ‘I did my job. Now, it’s up to these guys.’ They answered the bell.”
Joliet provided a gut punch to the team he once coached and the fans who once cheered him on.
That might take some time to get over.