Former Baseball: Bako ‘blessed’ by experiences in Major Leagues

Don’t get him wrong, Paul Bako still loves baseball.

He fully understands everything the sport has meant to him throughout his life.

He remains a big fan and a huge proponent of the game.

But this past summer might have been his favorite in the past 20 years.

Ironically, it was the first one that wasn’t totally centered around playing baseball.

"Yeah, I took the summer off after my freshman year (at UL)," Bako said. "So this is the first one since then."

The former Lafayette High and UL standout catcher is finishing up his first season of retirement after 12 years in Major League Baseball and almost six seasons in the minor leagues.

"Looking back, I know how blessed I’ve been," Bako said. "It’s kind of hard to explain. As many rewards as the game has brought me and how much fun it’s been and how great it was to play all those years, there’s just a lot of sacrifices you make along the way. Being able to be home every day this summer, it’s been great. It was very needed."

No longer was Bako having to go over scouting reports with a young pitcher just up from the minor leagues. Instead, he took trips and rediscovered daily living with his family — wife, Laurie; 12-year-old daughter, Abbey; and 9-year-old son, Will.

"It was great being able to spend that quality time with them," Bako said.

But now that school has started again, Dad is the one without the routine, so he’s had a little more time to reconnect with the pennant races in the big leagues.

"The first quarter or first half of the season, I didn’t really pay a lot of attention to it," he said. "Since school has started, I’ve been able to follow a couple of buddies and see how they’re doing."

Making the final month of baseball season even more enjoyable to Bako is that the last two teams he played for — Reds and Phillies — are cruising toward postseason appearances.

"It’s been very neat watching those guys play," Bako said. "What the Phillies are doing is by no means surprising to me."

Indeed, Bako experienced the secret to Philadelphia’s success story first-hand last season after playing in 44 regular season games and three rounds of the postseason with the Phillies.

"They have a great blend of talent and complementary interchangeable parts," he said. "And just as important, they have a great clubhouse. They play every day as a unit. That’s why they’re able to handle adversity as well as they have."

Bako’s time with the Phillies also put to rest some of the misconceptions about manager Charlie Manuel in his mind.

"You have to be around Charlie every day to understand him," he said. "He knows exactly when to push guys and exactly when to let things go. He’s a smart guy. He knows what he’s doing."

Bako played 2008 in Cincinnati and was drafted in the fifth round by the Reds out of UL back in 1993, so there are definite ties to the NL Central leaders as well.

So what if those two teams meet in the playoffs?

"Let’s just say, I’ll be very happy for the success that both teams are having," he said.

Of course, being a baseball fan is a complicated process for Bako.

Take the Atlanta Braves, for instance. Bako may have played for the Phillies last year, but he also had two separate stints with the Braves where he developed great respect for outgoing manager Bobby Cox and was a teammate of Chipper Jones. Bako also had two stints in Houston where he was a teammate of Billy Wagner, who is also in his farewell season.

Just in his first season away from the game, Bako isn’t ready to predict what his relationship to the game will be five or 10 years down the road. He likes the concept of the summer, wooden-bat Texas Collegiate League that the new local franchise, Acadiana Cane Cutters, has joined, and is willing to help when it fits into his new retirement schedule.

He’s also going to help out locally by playing in such events as Lafayette High Baseball’s benefit golf scramble next month.

But mostly, Bako’s just relishing his new role as full-time husband and father, as well as part-time baseball fan.

After all, two decades of traveling with 18 different teams made that a change that was long overdue.