This man's best friend

In the cow field where Mark “Pres” Pieraccini first played baseball, there was a hole in the ground behind home plate where a farmer had removed a huge rock. At Herlihy Field, in Whately, Mass., which he maintains and were he often plays now, his baseball friends recently placed a huge rock behind home plate with a tribute to his longtime companion “Bugs.”

The Installation

 Ever since Pres started Thursday Night Baseball (TNB)—a pickup game at Herlihy—in 2002, his dog Isaiah (“Bugs” to those who knew him–everyone in TNB has a nickname) has been as much a presence as Pres. For 16 years, at home, work or baseball, Bugs went where Pres went.

“Bugs and I would spend hundreds of hours down here,” Pres says, referring to the time he volunteers for repairing the pitcher’s mound, mowing grass, and grooms the infield dirt. Bugs even died at Herlihy, struck by a heart attack while Pres was working on the field.

“The day Bugs died he died right here. Two hours later I had to go play a baseball game. I gotta be here (for TNB). And I was ok, you know, being around my friends.”

Word went out immediately, not only to TNB players, but also to Pres’s friends in the three baseball leagues in which he plays. Many of the players were so moved by his loss that they immediately set about arranging a tribute to the dog he loved. For more than a month, they secretly exchanged emails, floating ideas, trying to find the right expression of how they were feeling about Pres and Bugs.

“Man, oh man, he is sorely missed,” says Mike “Nails” Mercier, who plays TNB.

“That dog and his owner are surely loved,” says Paul “Kap” Kaplan, who initiated and organized the effort.

 Kap making the dedication speech-photo courtesy of Melissa Frydlo

After weeks of emails, former major-leaguer Jim Bouton wrote, “I have to tell you this is the nicest bunch of ballplayers I've ever seen.”

In the end, the groups honored friend and dog in three ways: a portrait painted by TNB regular Jeff "Mad Dog" Valluzzi for Pres’s home; a bronze plaque set in the rock behind home plate as a public tribute; and a picnic to unveil both to Pres.

About 35 people attended the Bugs Memorial Picnic on Sunday, October 4 at Herlihy. Melissa “Mel” Frydlo, who plays with Pres in a league, as well as TNB, coordinated the event. Players and their partners and children gathered, first in  the pavilion Pres helped to build for the presentation of the portrait, then behind the backstop for the unveiling of the plaque.

“Everyone is here showing respect,” she says. “It’s Pres’s day.” Fittingly, kids and adults alike were playing catch, and a number of dogs were running around.

Standing by the rock that commemorates Bugs, watching a few guys run through batting practice after dinner, Pres grins.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if a baseball game broke out,” he says.


Pres admires the painting

Players relaxing on a non-game day.