Trich has been a baseball difference-maker
Editor’s note: This is part of a series of articles celebrating the 75th anniversary of PONY Baseball and Softball, leading up to the Pony League World Series Aug. 7-12.
Leo Trich has played a significant part in building the baseball legacy of Washington and the surrounding area.
He is a difference-maker and his efforts helped shaped the baseball landscape in Washington and the Tri-State area.
Trich is quick to credit his mother, Patricia Aloia Trich, who followed and often discussed the Washington Redbirds – a former minor league club – for his early interest in the game. The Redbirds were an affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals.
“My love of baseball actually came from my mother,” Trich explained. “She, her sisters and her friends would go watch the team play. She was always interested in baseball. My father was as well. But my mom always talked about the Redbirds.”
Trich is one of the last links between the founders of Pony League Baseball and today’s regime, which includes Abraham Key, the president and chief executive officer of Pony League Baseball and Softball, among others.
He has been involved in sports – most of it in baseball — for decades. For more than 15 years he worked for PONY Baseball International. He traveled across the Unites States and around the world promoting baseball.
Trich was PONY’s National Commissioner from 1978 through 1984.
He coached in the Pony Baseball and Softball organization in Washington and was manager of the 1972 Washington Pony League World Series team.
Trich knows baseball, has a passion for it and has made a huge impact in it throughout his life.
“Baseball is still a first love of mine sports-wise,” Trich said. “Without question. Pony League Baseball is huge because it started in my hometown, which gives it a special interest for me. When I started working at Pony, it was just by happenstance. I was coaching Bronco League baseball and attending college. I happened to be coaching one of Roy Gillespie’s (one of Pony League Baseball’s founders) kids, Steve.
“I was also working at one of the glass plants in town, like a lot of college students did in the summers, and they were starting to lay off employees. I was one of the first let go. Roy suggested I visit the PONY Baseball office. He said: ‘You might be cutting grass one day, answering the phone the next, but we’d love to have you come out until the glass company calls you back.’ Oddly enough, 15 years later, I was still with PONY. I literally fell into that job.”
Trich recalled being enriched by his work with PONY Baseball.
“When they first started sending me out on the road, I could just sense the ‘who’s this young guy coming in the door?’ We’ve been around for a long time in our local leagues and so forth, but it all worked out. I had a great career with PONY Baseball. I started, as an office employee, helping Roy and Lew Hays (another league founder). They knew I had a love of baseball.”
Baseball ambassador
As an “executive on loan” to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1983, Trich took a team of 18-, 19- and 20-year-old players from Pennsylvania to Europe to advance the game of baseball and help gain Olympic status for the sport. That team won an international tournament in Amsterdam.
He served in many capacities in the “Baseball in the Olympics” movement. Trich was elected vice president of the United States Baseball Federation, served as chairman at two U.S. Olympic Committee National Sports Festivals and was player selection chairman for college baseball at the 1982 World’s Fair.
Trich served on the United States Olympic Committee and on a taskforce for baseball competition for the 1984 Summer Olympics held in Los Angeles.
He founded Ballpark Scholarships Inc. and through that non-profit group, led efforts to build Falconi Field (now EQT Park) in North Franklin Township and was instrumental in acquiring a Frontier League professional baseball team, “The Washington Wild Things.”
Trich was later a Director of the Frontier League.
Included on his baseball resume was forming and owning a college summer league team, the Butler Blue Sox, in 2006. The team played in Washington to start before moving to Butler. Trich sold his ownership in 2011.
In addition to his sports career, Trich served seven terms in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives (1988-2002) representing the 47th Legislative District. He attended California University, Washington & Jefferson College, Harvard University and the John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Trich served as chairman of the Southwest Committee, vice chairman of Health and Human Services Committee, Appropriations, Business and Commerce, and Veterans Affairs Committees.
Trich, 74, and his wife, Adel, reside in North Franklin Township and are parents of three children, Christian, and twins, Brittney and Courtney.
“I’d say Leo has a real passion for baseball,” said John Swiatek, Brand Motives founder and community volunteer. “It’s just a big part of his life, and I think he has translated and helped transform Washington County as it relates to some of its baseball assets. With the Wild Things, he was instrumental helping to build the stadium and bringing the Frontier League to Washington. He also played a big role in Pony League baseball. With Leo, I think of three things: his love for his family, baseball and community.”
Trich spent a lot of time on the road representing PONY. He is known throughout the country and the world.
His impact has been immense in the Greater Washington area, and he has long advocated for his hometown.
No one realizes that more than Key.
“He has been and is a terrific mentor of mine in my career,” Key explained. “Leo certainly has been around, starting in the 1970s. He certainly knew and grew up knowing and working with some of those early board members.
“He thought enough of me as a young kid that he asked if I wanted a part-time job at PONY. I was probably 16- or 17-years old. In 1976, I started cutting the grass and running printing presses and picking up people from the airport for Pony – all those odd jobs.
“He has been instrumental to me and recognized my interest in baseball. I wasn’t a super player, but good enough to make some all-star teams. He saw something in me that I had an interest in something a little bit bigger in the game. I was his right-hand for many years until he left and went into politics.
“He was the guy who recommended me for a staff position, which I happily accepted. When he went into politics, he was the youngest city councilman for the city of Washington. He was passionate about baseball, but he liked politics and was passionate about people and his community. Leo wanted to make a difference, and he felt he could make a difference in the political arena. It came as a shock to all of us. I remember when he took us all to lunch and told us he was leaving Pony and going to throw his hat in the ring.”
Baseball advocate
Lynford Lynch, West Region Baseball Division Director for PONY, got to know Trich when the former commissioner was heavily involved in getting a Frontier League franchise to relocate in Washington.
Trich asked Lynch to provide support.
“I knew Leo was important because he came at a time that Pony League was getting a foothold. He did so much for PONY in the aspect of promoting it,” Lynch said. “”He is personable and genuine, and people listen to him because they respect him.
“He’s also been an advocate for baseball, not just Pony, or youth, but fighting to bring the Wild Things here, and starting the Blue Sox. He’s always been a big baseball guy. He has it in his veins.”
Trich’s conclusion about his contributions to PONY are wrapped in those he learned from, worked for and helped to mentor.
“Those local individuals who I had a chance to be around, as a young person, learning from them, learning how good people conduct themselves was a major part of my growing up. To have Lew Hays and Roy Gillespie as mentors . . . of all the people I’ve met in my lifetime, those two guys still stand near the top of the list. They were not only great guys, just great people. I think PONY Baseball has reaped the benefits of that.”