Article about Joe Lewis at age 100
100 and counting
Tim Geary, Herald News Staff Reporter
05/14/2006
When Erin Lewis was 12 years old she saw the movie "Titanic."
"I loved that movie and so did my great grandfather," said Lewis, now 18 and a senior at Somerset High School.
Her great grandfather, Joe Lewis Sr., also saw and liked the movie but when they sat down to discuss it he informed Erin that the film, while entertaining, was not factual.
"He told me, ‘That’s not the way it happened,’" grinned Erin, an all star field hockey player and track standout for the Blue Raiders.
Joe Lewis should know. He was alive in 1912 when the so-called ‘unsinkable’ ship hit an iceberg in the north Atlantic and went down.
At the time, the patriarch of the Lewis clan was six years old.
Saturday his family, four generations strong, was at Magoni’s Ferry Landing to celebrate his 100th birthday.
Erin’s father, Tim Lewis, told the story of one Christmas when his grandfather showed up at their house with a guest -- Ted Williams.
"I was too small to really remember it," said Tim, "but that’s the kind of life my grandfather has had. He knew everybody."
Lewis has been alive for the administrations of 18 U.S. presidents, two San Francisco earthquakes, a pair ofWorld Wars, a depression, man’s first step on the surface of the moon, the Korean and Vietnam wars, the inventions of both the automobile and airplane, Woodstock, Watergate and a time when the American and National Leagues only had eight teams and World Series games were played exclusively in the daytime.
Baseball has played a major role in Lewis’ life. For 60 years he worked as a professional scout, mainly for the Detroit Tigers organization, but also for the Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Angels and Texas Rangers.
"I went wherever Joe Klein went," said Lewis.
Klein, who was the general manager for those teams, was in attendance Saturday at Magoni’s, which speaks volumes about the esteem in which he holds Lewis.
During his life, Lewis has seen a score of great players, including Babe Ruth.
"It was when I was playing for St. Patrick’s and we won the championship and The Herald News sponsored a trip up to Boston to see the Red Sox," he recalled. "That’s the first time I saw the Babe."
Lewis has also watched many of the game’s other legends.
"I saw Ty Cobb, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Williams, Bill Dickey, I saw them all," he said.
He’s watched Barry Bonds move in on Ruth’s 714 home runs and frankly he’s not impressed.
"I don’t know about him," said Lewis of Bonds. "I don’t think the numbers he’s putting up should count. I don’t know for sure if Bonds is taking (steroids) or not, but I do know that Babe Ruth did it on his own.
"These guys like (Mark) McGwire and (Sammy) Sosa were taking something and Ruth did it naturally and he did it when the ball was not nearly as lively as it is today."
For years, Lewis worked at the Naval Torpedo Station at Quonset Point in North Kingstown, R.I.
"I remember buying a car and the way I paid for it was driving a bunch of other guys each day and charging them $5 a week. That was pretty good money then because you could buy eight gallons of gas for a dollar."
His scouting career began after the Tigers signed his son, the late Joe Lewis Jr. out of Duke University where he was an All-American.
Joe Jr. was a star pitcher at Coyle High School in Taunton, and after his playing days he was the head baseball coach at Durfee High, where the field is dedicated in his memory.
"When Joe signed with the Tigers, they gave me a small scouting job," said Jr. Sr. "Before I knew it the job got bigger and then bigger."
He traveled everywhere, with his notebooks and scorecards and he watched thousands of games and tens of thousands of players.
One of those was local star Jerry Remy, the current color analyst for NESN.
"Jerry was on our list and we drafted him out of Somerset High, but it was during the Vietnam War and his mother was afraid he’d have to go into the army," said Lewis. "So he went off to St. Leo’s College in Florida and then after he transferred up to Roger Williams, the Angels eventually signed him."
Another who got away was former Yankees captain Thurman Munson.
"He played for my son, Joe, at Chatham (of the Cape Cod League) and we really wanted to sign him when I was scouting for the Texas Rangers," said Joe Sr. "We tried to get him but the Yankees offered him too much money."
Lewis signed many others though (Tom Grieve, Joe Coleman Jr., Tony Fossas) and he judged their talent without a radar gun or a stop watch.
"Radar guns?" he said. "You don’t need a gun to tell if somebody can throw hard and you don’t need a watch to tell you if somebody can run fast."
He prefers baseball the way it was, when all pitchers had to hit and when players weren’t paid a king’s ransom.
"There’s a lot of money these days," he said. "That’s good for the players, but I don’t know if it’s good for the game.
"I remember when players would only get $2,700 for their first year in the majors. That was pretty low. Now they get $10 to $20 million just to sign."
Lewis splits his time between Lakeland, Fla., where the Tigers train in the spring, and southeastern Massachusetts.
"He still drives himself back and forth," said Tim Lewis. "He’s an amazing man. He’s been great to us and especially to my children. The love to sit down with him and hear the stories. He’s full of history."
Erin Lewis glows when she speaks about her great grandfather.
"It’s really cool when my friends tell stories about their families and I can come back with stories about him," she said. "It’s not just so much his age but what he’s accomplished in his life."
And the secret to living to 100?
"People might not believe me but I pray every night and thank God for keeping me in the condition that I’m in," said Lewis.
"I’ve been lucky. I’ve had no sickness whatsoever. That’s luck and the guy upstairs."
