TERRY MOSHER
HARLAND BEERY
The board of the Kitsap Athletic Roundtable gathered Friday (July 24) at a home in Silverdale to honor a man that has meant so much too so many. That would be Harland Beery, who was given a lifetime achievement award by the KAR as he sit in his downstairs lair partially covered by a blanket with a walker sitting in front of him.
Beery would be an unseen hero if it wasn’t for the fact he’s not been unseen in a career covering and writing and running various sports, but mostly baseball in this state. He is home bound now, struck low by the cancer that eats away at him while he fights back with an experimental drug proscribed by doctors in sort of a clinical trial.
Soon to be 82 (Aug. 29), Beery is to baseball in this state just as much as the Mariners are to baseball in this state. Maybe even more so. In a column I wrote for the Kitsap Sun two years ago, I pointed out Harland has been commissioner of two baseball leagues, the Nor-Pac, a seven-team collegiate league, and the Casey Stengel baseball program that included clubs like the old Cheney Studs and the Kitsap Outsiders.
He was also the assistant to the president of Seattle Pacific University, was one of the original Major League official scorers for Mariner games, and was on the original statistic crew for the Seattle Supersonics.
If you needed something done in sports in the Pacific Northwest all you had to do was find Beery’s phone number and give him a call. He was always willing to help out, which when I think about it is what Harland is all about – helping out wherever he can, including his church and the KAR.
Harland was a KAR board member and was very instrumental in putting together the annual Kitsap Sports Hall of Fame. In fact, the board was unanimous in its agreement that the Hall of Fame would have died a long time ago if not for him.
It’s a shame that we humans are limited to how long we can live on this Earth, and it’s even more shameful when I think of Harland and what he has done for so many without even a hint of wanting to be rewarded for his efforts. He always has said that he wanted to be more than his dad was, and wanted to be a positive contributor to his community.
Well, Harland, you did it.
Now Harland is in the twilight in his stay on this Earth. He’s won a lot of battles over his long life, but this is one he will not. Cancer is ugly. It sucks the life out of its victims, often very heartlessly.
Harland is as deeply a Christian as you will find. He has known for a long, long time that what waits for him (and others) on the other side is peace and glory without a touch of suffering and that is a good thing. He has suffered enough in these end times and as much as we don’t want him to leave us, he will one of these days and the rest of us will be the losers.
I personally will miss knowing Harland will not be there to accept my phone calls and give me an oral history lesson on sports in this state. I was always amazed with Harland’s total recall of events. He used to go to meetings and come back to the office and give me a word-by-word description of what was said. It was like he had a mental tape recorder and when he wanted to recall anything he just pushed a mental button and it would all come spewing out, word after word.
It’s often said of certain people that he (or she) was one of a kind (Elton Goodwin was one) and Harland certainly fits that description to a tee. He is and has been one of a kind. You couldn’t recreate him if you seriously tried. And that is a bad thing, because our community is going to be much the worse when he finally departs us.
I strongly feel that we should honor our local heroes when they are alive and not wait to name a street, a field, or a gym, or anything, after a person when they are gone. That is why I was happy Les Eathorne got to see his name on the outside of the Bremerton High School gym before he died.
So I’m glad the KAR honored Harland. Now I wish they would honor him further (along with Bob Fredericks) with a scholarship in his name given each year to a deserving local athlete.
Anyway, that is enough for today. If I continue on I’ll start crying.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.