Erick Starkey/News
Ryan Martin’s father, Tom, threw out the ceremonial first pitch Saturday during the Mount Vernon Baseball Association’s Opening Day ceremony to name the local field at Phillips Park Ryan Martin Field.
“The big thing for me was for these boys,” Martin’s childhood friend Kyle Thiebert said. “There’s not a whole lot of heroes to look up to anymore and Ryan is one of them, so I thought this was a great way to honor him, plus, he loved baseball.”
Thiebert and Martin shared a dugout for two years in Mount Vernon Little League, playing for Don’s Plaza Shell for two summers. The pair and their team reached the league championship both years, with Martin playing all across the diamond. One of Thiebert’s top memories of Martin was when he hit a home run over the fence, while being stung by a bee at the same time.
“Ryan was just that guy everybody always wanted to be around,” Thiebert said. “He was happy and never down.”
Martin went to Mount Vernon High School, before enlisting in the Army National Guard. He was deployed to Iraq and lost his life in 2004 while in the line of duty.
After several years of work, Thiebert, Mount Vernon Baseball Association and City Council worked together to figure out the best way to honor Martin. Saturday, the plans came to fruition when during the Little League Opening Day, there was a ceremony to honor the naming of the field.
City Council’s Matt Starr opened the ceremony with a brief biography of Martin, before a 21-gun salute, Taps and the National Anthem. Martin’s father, Tom Martin, tossed out the ceremonial first pitch to Thiebert’s son, Caden, to break in the newly named field.
“This is one of the things that means a lot to the city because it’s part of our culture,” Starr said. “We honor the people who serve our country, were great community members, great students. It’s a way of remembering those people who meant a lot to us and still mean a lot to us.”
The field was previously named Paul Slaughter Field, and it was named as such in the 1990s.
“He was in a lot of different community functions and he gave his heart and soul,” Starr said of Slaughter.
Erick Starkey/News
The new sign at the entrance of Phillips Park now carries the namesake of both Ryan Martin and Paul Slaughter.
For at least the next 20 years, every Little Leaguer that touches the dirt will go past a sign that commemorates the field as Ryan Martin Field.
“I either saw it in a movie or read a quote one time and it said that when someone is killed or when a loved one dies, the worst day is when they die,” an emotional Thiebert said. “The second worst day is when they’re forgotten. It’s important to me that for the next 20 years he won’t be forgotten.”
