Tom Lara Funeral Arrangements

Lorry Greenberg provides the following funeral info:

Here's the line-up for Tom Lara:

Thursday, July 24 @ St. Robert's
6:00 to 7:00pm  -  Viewing
7:00pm  -  Rosary

Friday, July 25 @ St. Robert's
12;00noon  -  Mass

These details are not confirmed yet:  Funeral Mass will be followed by a BBQ near "Tom Lara Field" at San Bruno City Park along with a Joe DiMaggio game.

Please pass this info along!

Multiple Article by San Bruno residents on the passing of Tom Lara.

Tom Lara – King of the San Bruno Diamond

The following is re-printed from the Peninsula Progress of January 5 – 19 2013

By Jean Bartlett

| ARTS AND FEATURES WRITER |

A tribute to the father of San Bruno baseball

One of these days, Tom Lara is going to set up a room in his house for all his awards.  Known as the father of San Bruno baseball, Lara's dedication to helping kids play ball has been recognized by many including Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-CA 12th District), U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, retired judge Quentin Kopp, former California Governor George Deukmejian and (the late) President Ronald Reagan. He has also been recognized by the City of San Bruno.  On June 11, 1988, then San Bruno Mayor, the late Bob Marshall Sr., dedicated the Tom Lara Field, "in honor of Tom Lara who has continued to serve the San Bruno community for thirty-three years. His tireless efforts in building and maintaining youth baseball programs are deeply appreciated." Lara Field, located near the main entrance of San Bruno City Park, is major league baseball size and features bleacher seating. "I couldn't believe the City of San Bruno would do such a thing," said the 87-year-old Lara who still beams at the memory. "But I was thrilled."

For Lara, sports were the thing that saved him from being a "punk." Born in Honolulu to Thomas and Pilar Lara, Tom, the eldest of five boys, grew up in North Oakland, close to Emeryville. His parents, both from Spain, had come to the States when they were little. Tom's father was told the quickest way to become an

American citizen was to join the service. He signed up for the Army and was shipped to California. When the First World War ended, they shipped him back to Hawaii. A few years down the road, he met Pilar and they married.  The first two of the couple's five sons, Tom and Julio, were born in Hawaii. Eager to return to California, Lara Sr. moved the family to Sunnyvale where he had built them a home. When the Depression hit, the family lost everything.  Tom's dad got a construction job in Oakland. "I was very close to my mom," Lara said. "And when I was 10, she died. She was only 28." With the youngest Lara child still in diapers, Tom's dad couldn't handle it and sent his five sons – Tom, Julio, Frank, Lawrence and Joseph – to live with his wife's parents, who also lived in Oakland.

"I had a chip on my shoulder after my mom died," Lara said. "I didn't take two words from anybody. If I thought somebody was saying something bad to me, I got into a fight." The first important turn for Tom came when his school's P.E. teacher talked him into playing basketball. "I didn't know basketball, but the teacher told me he'd work with me anyway," Lara said. "I started playing and I liked it." Come soft ball

season, Tom tried that and he liked it. When he was 11, he was told he should go try out for summer baseball. Th e coach put him in right field and told Tom, "You're a lot of work but you made the team." Lara discovered he was a pretty good hitter and soon he was batting ninth. Before the season was over, he was batting third and playing center field. "I had a lot of upper body strength which really helped me in

sports," Lara said. "What I didn't know is I built up my arms, shoulders and chest because I had to chop wood. My grandparents cooked using wood and that was one of my chores."

Another turn in Tom's road that helped him was when his grandfather put him in a Catholic elementary school. "Those nuns didn't take any guff and they straightened me right out," Lara laughed. "On top of that, I met really good people who were behind my playing soccer, basketball, football and baseball."

One of those people was Charley Tye. An ex major league player, Tye owned a couple of bars and restaurants in Oakland and he was interested in helping kids out, so he sponsored youth baseball. Lara made the cut.

"Charley liked to take his outfielders and put them in the infield, to get them used to picking up ground balls," Lara said. "He needed a shortstop and he told me I was the kid for the job. I told him I was scared of those ground balls and I didn't want the job. But Charley taught me how to move my feet, like a dancer

almost, so I could get those fastballs, and it worked out." Lara's grandparents moved the family to

West Oakland and Tom went to McClymonds High School. He also still played Charley Tye ball and Lara's name was all over the Oakland Post Enquirer. When Lara was 15, his team won the state championship, but they were playing in the 16-year-old league. "Two of our long-time teammates were a year older than the rest of us," Lara said. "They were 16, we were 15 and we all wanted to stick together. We had to fight for that decision, and nobody would manage us, so Charley made me manager. He told

me, that every time our team won, we could all go to his place for a coke, a hotdog or a hamburger,

and fries. We won 17 games in a row, and Charley pulled me aside and said, 'Tom, you're breaking me!'"

By that point in time, Lara was also a switch-hitter. A baseball coach had picked Tom up at the house one day, and saw Tom chopping wood. "I had to chop wood, regardless of game time," Lara noted. But what the coach noted was that his right-handed batter was chopping wood left -handed. Lara played semi-pro baseball while he was in high school and was scouted by the Yankees, the Cardinals and the Cubs.

"But then I threw an apple in the big machine," Lara laughed. "I went and joined the Navy in May and went to San Diego for training right after I graduated from high school." Joining the Navy was a fl uke. Lara, who used to go deep sea fishing and crabbing with his grandfather and his uncles, was out crabbing

when a Navy ship pulled into port. "I was curious and they invited us on board," Lara said. "They gave us a tour and I was sold!" Lara wanted to be a machinist mate or a motor mate in the Navy – that's were his skills were. But the Navy told him he tested highest for radio operator. They pulled him out of boot camp and sent him to radio school for 20 weeks. In those training days, he also fought in the Navy "smokers." (Navy Plebe Wrestling Smoker.)

"My mom's youngest brother, who was still in high school when my brothers and I moved in, was the champion wrestler in California," Lara said. "His name was Frank Labrado and he taught me how to wrestle. He was like a brother to me." So, while Tom trained for radio school, which was followed by amphibious training, he also boxed. And before the Radio Operator, Third Class shipped out, he additionally married his high school sweetheart, Connie.

"The first time I saw Connie, we were both 16," Lara said. "It was at a Catholic 'instruction night, which was kind of like a Boys and Girls Club event. I said to my friend Rudy, 'I think she's looking at you.' And he said, 'No, she's looking at you!'"

Next time Tom saw Connie was at the neighborhood theater, the Fox Peralta. Connie and her mother were sitting right in front of Tom and his friends. When Connie got up to get a snack, Tom followed her and they started talking – and that was it. Connie's mother and Tom got along very well. "Connie's dad didn't like me," Lara laughed. "I used to wear zoot suits and had a duck haircut. Connie and I went together for a year and a half, and then she made the mistake of visiting me when I was in San Diego. I never thought about marrying anyone until I met Connie. I was almost 19, when we married. We've been married for 68 years and I'm still head over heels!"

Lara's tour of duty would carry him into two of the Second World War's biggest battles in the Pacific Theater, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. "I worked as the Captain's private radio operator and didn't have to hit the beach," Lara said. "I was in between. The beach gave me the information and I relayed it to the ship."

When the War ended, the Navy sent the ship Lara was on to help the Chinese with the Nationalist Troops. Tom would end up in Tsingtao, Taikoo and Hong Kong before returning to the States. The former radio operator got a job as a machinist apprentice with the Bemis Bag Company in San Francisco. He received his "journeyman" in three years, rather than the usual five, and would go on to work as a Plant

Manager for Free Flow in Redwood City and retire aft er many years as a Manager at Astro Packaging in Hayward. He and Connie moved to San Bruno in 1955 and have lived there since.

They have three children – Thomas III, Linda and Paul. Lara's founding of "San Bruno" baseball was accidental. "I was looking for a place for my kid to do some kind of program in the summer," Lara said. "So we went to the Rec Center and I asked what kind of programs did they have for kids in the summer and they didn't have any. With their permission, I started working my son out in the field. Pretty soon, kids with gloves wanted to join us and I was teaching a baseball clinic. Then dads who played ball as kids came out and started helping. In no time, we had enough kids to start a 4-team league." By the next year, Lara had six teams and by the next, eight. Lara, who was with the VFW, started the Teener Baseball League.  He helped a couple of dads get a younger baseball team going. He helped two moms get a team going for the girls.

"The City of San Bruno really helped out," Lara said. "Bill Frisbie was supervisor of Park and Rec at the time and he did a tremendous job of moving things along." Lara was San Bruno Baseball Commissioner, a title he held for many years, and he had leagues which took the kids all the way through age 15 – Pee Wee Baseball League for boys eight through ten, Midget Baseball League for boys eleven through twelve, and Teener Baseball League for boys thirteen through fifteen. "But we had kids 16 through 18 not playing ball," Lara said.

In the late '60s, a friend of Lara's, Lt. Charlie Ellis with the San Francisco PD, who in turn was a friend of Joe DiMaggio's, asked the Yankee Clipper if he could form a baseball league using his name. DiMaggio agreed. Lara, with the help of Ellis, Carl Vallero of Pacifica, a Millbrae Coach, other Peninsula coaches, and a good friend who owned a sporting goods store in San Francisco, made a Peninsula Joe DiMaggio League a reality in 1967. Joe DiMaggio came to San Bruno and threw out the first pitch (at what is now Lara Field).

When Lara was having tryouts for the Joe DiMaggio League, he met Bob Greenberg. The late Greenberg, who would go on to become a longtime youth baseball volunteer – which included serving as Commissioner for San Bruno's Junior Giants from 1995 until his passing in 2006, and whose legacy

was recognized by the City of San Bruno with the dedication of Commodore Park's baseball field as Bob Greenberg Field in September of 2006 – approached Lara. "He wanted to know if his kid had a chance of making the team," Lara laughed at the recollection. "I asked him who his kid was." It turns out Greenberg's "kid" was a guy who could run like a gazelle, was a great center fielder and was a left handed batter. "I went to see his son perform at high school and his son wasn't there," Lara said. "He wasn't there because he wasn't getting good grades, and when I talked to him he told me it was because

he didn't like his teachers and various other excuses, but he wanted to play DiMaggio baseball. I told him to get his grades up or forget it. I didn't take anybody who flunked out of school."  Greenberg's son got his grades up and played ball – and he played it well.

"I couldn't shake his dad loose after that," Lara laughed. "But Bob was such a great help to baseball in San Bruno and he knew how to raise money, which we needed. We had a great friendship. We were like brothers. When he married his wife Lorry, I warned her, she was getting a new brother-in-law – me!" Lara, who has had so many titles – he's been the President of the Joe DiMaggio Peninsula League, the resident of the San Bruno Lions of which he's been a member for 25 years, a Commander at San Bruno's VFW, a Commissioner with Park and Rec, and the list goes on – said he's got a lot of great baseball memories, and all are about "how we won or how we lost." "Wally Bunker (Baltimore Orioles 1963-1968 and Kansas City Royals, 1969-1971), pitched for me when he was really a young kid and then he went to St. Robert's," Lara said. "And when St. Robert's joined our league, he played for St. Robert's instead of

us. He was a tremendous pitcher and a good ball player. One time he hit the trees and got a triple. It was the last inning. We had one of their players out and we were ahead by one run. The next player bunted but it was popped up. Our catcher caught it bare-handed and tagged Wally coming in – we won the game."

"I have been so involved in baseball here in San Bruno because I know what it did for me," Lara said. "A lot of kids were getting in trouble back in my day and they'd want me to join them, and I never would. They'd call me names but they got caught stealing and later one of those kids told me, that I was the smart one."

"Sports can really solidify who you are," Lara continued. "When I think of kids who played baseball with us who went on to become teachers, firemen, policemen, business owners, UC Berkeley professors, and two of our boys got scholarships to college through our program – I like to think I helped to have a hand in that."

Lara, who also has seven grandchildren, four great grandchildren and one great grandchild on the way said that he has done very well in life. "You've got to love one another and help one another, and that's really it," Lara said when contemplating what makes for a good life. "Plus you've got to have friends, someone who will pick you up and straighten you out – that's a friend. And play sports! Of course, I'll always try to beat you. But win or lose, sports are rejuvenating!" Lara added that he wanted to dedicate this article to Warren Wynkoop. The late sports editor and principal photographer for the San Bruno Herald wrote a lot about the kids at Capachino and Crestmoor high schools, and as far as Lara is concerned, Wynkoop put San Bruno on the map.

Jean Bartlett is additionally the Arts and Features Correspondent

for the Pacifica Tribune.

Laura Davis writes:

Our prayers go out to the Lara family.  Tom Lara passed away this evening (Thursday) with his family by his side.  Tom will always be remembered as such a giving and supportive person.  Since 1955 Tom has dedicated his time to San Bruno baseball.  First as a coach and then in 1957 he became a baseball commissioner.  In 1967, he formed the first Joe DiMaggio program in San Bruno which continues today.  In 1988, San Bruno City Park Baseball field was named Tom Lara Field in his honor.  Tom continued to give back to our community as a member of the San Bruno Park & Recreation Commission as well as a member of San Bruno Lions Club.  I feel honored to have spent the past 8 years working with him on the commission.  His dedication and “I do this for the kids” attitude will never be forgotten.  RIP Tom Lara …… Laura Davis

Lorry Greenberg writes:

Tom Lara: Father of San Bruno Baseball

July 5, 1925 – July 17, 2014

To watch Tom Lara hold court at a Joe DiMaggio League baseball game is to witness the history of San Bruno baseball. Player after player and coach after coach stops by to shake hands and thank again the man who helped so many of them in baseball and in life.

“I’m proudest of the kids who followed through and got an education,” says Lara, who launched and ran several San Bruno baseball leagues that have served thousands of youths over the last half-century. “I told them to pursue academics and that sports was secondary.”

As successful businessmen, teachers and public servants drop by to pay their respects, through it all, Lara remains humble. That’s not as easy as it may seem in light of the fact that the games are played at Tom Lara Field.

The naming of the field at San Bruno Park in 1987 was a high point in Lara’s tenure as the father of San Bruno baseball, but it was not a stopping point. He remains active in the Lions Club, a major sponsor of youth baseball leagues, but more importantly he remains involved in many of the lives he’s touched.

Perhaps his continued dedication stems from knowing firsthand the importance of sports in keeping youths out of trouble. His mother passed away when he was 10 years old. “I had a chip on my shoulder,” Lara recalls. “Anyone who looked at me cross-eyed, I’d hit him.”

But sports rescued Lara. He played soccer, basketball and baseball for McClymonds High in Oakland and played in the East Bay’s Post-Inquirer Baseball League, as well as semi-pro baseball.

In 1943, Lara volunteered for the Navy, where he played baseball and boxed. The following year, he married Conchetta (Connie), his wife of 69 years, who recently passed away on November 23, 2013.  Tom and Connie raise three children, Tom, Jr, Linda, and Paul.  By 1954, the couple had moved to San Bruno, where Lara continued his career as a machinist.

“One day, I came to the park and inquired about a baseball program, and there was none,” he recalls. “Some other kids came and joined me and my son, working out in the park. Pretty soon there were 30, 40 kids every Saturday and Sunday.”

It was only a matter of time and effort before Lara founded San Bruno’s Teener League in 1956. He founded the San Bruno Midget (currently, the Bronco League) and Pee Wee Leagues in 1963 through 1965 and the Joe DiMaggio League in 1967.

“Joe DiMaggio threw out the first ball himself, and he had this place packed,” Lara recalls.

He served as commissioner of all four leagues, overseeing dozens of teams and 500 players per year until 1970, when he helped form a board of directors, which he then chaired. Notable players passing through leagues included Wally Bunker (Baltimore Orioles), Bob Stoddard (Seattle Mariners, Baltimore Orioles), Stu Bringhurst (New York Mets farm club), Dan Danielson (San Diego Padres’ farm club), Fred Costello (Houston Astros’ farm club), Tony Sylvestri (Florida Marlins’ farm club), and Steve Hoff (San Diego Padres’ farm club).

Along the way, Lara spent countless hours not only teaching baseball and preaching the importance of education, but also working tirelessly to advance the cause of baseball in San Bruno. He hustled and scrapped to pull together uniforms and recruit volunteers. He lobbied for lights and fields.

That includes the one named for him, where he presides over the DiMaggio league games. “It’s a place for the kids to watch and say, ‘Someday, I want to play there,’” Lara says. “That’s important, because if it wasn’t for sports in my life, who knows what would have happened?”