The Soddy-Daisy Kids Club made quite a catch Saturday. The maker of "The Catch" came to help with a camp for the program's ages 5-12 baseball players.
Otis Nixon, whose spectacular, much-replayed high-rise robbery of a home run helped the Atlanta Braves keep a 13-game winning streak alive in July 1992, gave some tips on throwing, fielding, baserunning and hitting off a tee. He also gave some advice -- brief, with respect to young attention spans -- about succeeding in life.
"Study hard in school, listen to your parents, stay out of trouble and say no to drugs," he told the kids after the baseball part was done.
Clay Carroll, a longtime big-league pitcher who's in the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame, gave a similar message and joined Nixon for an extended autograph and photo session at the Kids Club park.
Drugs derailed Nixon's own life on more than on one occasion, and he's written a book about coming to grips with that and turning it into a positive: "Keeping it Real: A Story About Restoring Lives One Man, One Woman, One Child At a Time."
The book cover includes such slogans as "Your attitude determines your altitude" -- which might explain his ability to get to Andy Van Slyke's blast that day in Atlanta -- and "Sometimes the wise man in the room is the one that made the most mistakes."
He has a foundation based on his restoring-lives theme, and he often represents SCORE International, a Christian sports ministry based in Chattanooga, at baseball clinics and golf fundraisers. He'll be in Chattanooga on May 4 for a SCORE tournament at Black Creek Club, in fact.
According to SCORE executive director John Zeller, a former Tennessee Temple baseball coach, Nixon is active in First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Ga., and is "very accountable" with a handful of men there, including the pastor.
"He's really come a long way. He's really a testimony to what SCORE is all about," Zeller said Sunday from Tampa, Fla. "He's been through some valleys and some tough times, but God has brought him on the other side, and he does a good job talking about that.
"He really fits in well with SCORE and the heart of Ron (Bishop, the ministry's late founder), who was all about giving people second chances."
Nixon fit in well Saturday at the lakeside park with his easy smile and continual encouragement of the young Soddy-Daisy athletes. He promised to be back next year, making the event "bigger and better" with more ex-Braves, and he said later that he particularly likes coming to small towns rather than big cities.
"It couldn't have gone any better, for the first one we ever did," said Michael Jenkins, president of the Kids Club. "We had a great turnout and a lot of our coaches worked the stations. It was a big success.
"My son hasn't been able to sleep all week, knowing somebody from major league baseball was coming here. I showed him the YouTube of 'The Catch,' and that just made him more excited. This was a big deal to these kids.
"It helped us coaches, too. He talked about Bobby Cox's ABCs of baseball, and I think the coaches picked up a couple of pointers on how to teach the fundamentals maybe a little simpler."
Nixon's visit was set up by past president Billy Petty, who through his Green Energy Solutions company worked with Soddy-Daisy native Sid Fritts to secure the 17-year major league veteran. Fritts owns a heating and air conditioning company in Atlanta and is a friend of Nixon.
Nixon grew up in a small town -- Evergreen, N.C. -- and played junior college basketball and baseball at Louisburg.
He played for nine big-league teams, beginning with the New York Yankees, but he was with Atlanta twice, including some of his best seasons in the early 1990s and his last year, 1999, at 40 years old, and considers the Braves his team. He hit only 11 home runs but had a career .270 batting average.
Besides outfield defense, he specialized in two aspects of the game that waned in popularity for a while but seem to be making a comeback: stolen bases and bunting. He stole 620 bases in his big-league career.
That was a family trait: Younger brother Donell Nixon, a former Chattanooga Lookout, also reached the major leagues and was known for stealing. One year in the minors, Donell stole 144 bases but Vince Coleman stole 145.
The speed dimension of baseball "is on the way coming back," Otis Nixon said. "Look at this year's Braves. They're a scrappy, scrappy, scrappy team. They're going to win with pitching and speed."
Contact Ron Bush at rbush@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6291.