Joe DiMaggio.

Saturday, April 07, 2001

Joe DiMaggio. Jackie Robinson. Hank Aaron. Roy Campanella. Stan Musial. Bob Feller. Robin Roberts. Hoyt Wilhelm. Christy Mathewson. Pete Rose. Tommy Lasorda. Shoeless Joe Jackson. Babe Ruth.

For most of us, they’re simply names, images of baseball legends.

For Mike Sichko, they’re much more. He either played with, played against or met each of them, and the list is far from complete.

If anyone in Albert Lea has earned the title of &uot;Mr. Baseball,&uot; it’s Sichko. He’s got the scars to prove it.

Sichko, 77, is currently recovering from shoulder replacement surgery in March. In December, he had reconstructive knee surgery.

The knee injury originated on a battle field in France in World War II, though Sichko is certain years of pounding on baseball fields took their toll on his body. You get the feeling he wouldn’t change anything.

&uot;Baseball was my life,&uot; said Sichko, who learned the game as a young boy in the coal-mining town of Footdale, Penn.

The third oldest of seven boys and two girls, Sichko grew up in a very athletic family. His brother, Bill, played football for the Pitt Panthers and received the Outstanding Player Award in the 1951 Orange Bowl.

&uot;Nine kids. We had a baseball team,&uot; said Sichko. &uot;We made the girls outfielders when they were five, six years old. We would walk miles to play baseball.&uot;

When he got his first uniform, around age 12, Sichko wore it literally day and night. He would spend a lot of time in uniform during the next two decades, some of it in a tank as a gunner and driver during the war but more of it between the white lines.

Sichko was spotted by two major league scouts while playing baseball in the armed forces. One of them, Poke Whalen of the Pittsburgh Pirates, was there with a contract when Sichko was discharged in 1946. Sichko received what he calls a nice bonus and signed.