(Second in a series)

He could barely read or write.

He could not drive a car.

He had a severe speech impediment.

His mental abilities were about those of a 12-year old. In the accepted language of his time, he was called retarded.

But against these disabilities, Lyle Touro was blessed with a generous heart, a sunny disposition, abiding optimism, a childish delight in being alive and the perseverance of an ox.

He loved sports and he loved children, and out of these enthusiasms, sometime in his late 20s, he decided to form a softball league for boys.  Lyle dreamed big.

This was Marion in the 1940s, a town of fewer than 5,000 people living in modest homes concentrated in about two square miles. Little League had only begun to expand out of its birthplace in Williamsport, Pa. The time was far in the future when vast youth sports enterprises would offer children as young as five the opportunity to play organized sports.

In Marion 65 years ago, the idea of being on a team and in a league was strange and thrilling to a sports-mad sixth-grader whose entire athletic experience consisted of pick-up games.

On weekends, Lyle Touro showed up at the town’s playgrounds carrying a few bats, scuffed softballs and rag-like fielders’ gloves.  He asked the boys, “Do you want to play in my league?”

I was one who said yes.  The year was about 1948, and I was 12.

So we gathered at the town softball diamond, a hard-packed patch of clay near the football field. We were a motley assembly of boys in T-shirts, patched jeans and canvas sneakers.  Most of us played bareheaded because we did not own a baseball cap.

For most town kids, the diamond was a short bicycle ride away, but Lyle lived on a farm three or four miles out of town, and he couldn’t drive a car. Sometimes he rode his old bicycle, sitting down all the way, pumping steadily with his strong legs, making good time over the gravel roads.

But he discovered that he could get to town quicker by walking. He would set off down the road, striding briskly, swinging his right arm in an exaggerated arc, like a soldier on parade. Lyle believed fully in the generosity of others, and his faith was usually rewarded. Before he got far, a passing motorist picked him up and drove him the rest of the way.

Lyle summoned us to practice by calling several boys and assigning them to call others until enough boys had committed to play. I was one of his organizers, and the incessant ringing of the telephone distressed my mother, a normally uncomplaining woman who believed that use of a phone should be restricted largely to emergencies.

But even after all those calls, the number of boys who showed up was not remotely enough to form a league. The best Lyle could do on most days was pull together the fragments of two teams and set them against each other as he served as manager and coach for both sides. Sometimes we just played workup.

But Lyle took his role seriously. He stood near the third-base line and monitored our play. To us youngsters, he was physically imposing. Born in 1917, he was about 30 when I played for him. There was nothing about Lyle that was not thick: his legs, his body, his neck, his arms, his fingers.

His wide torso was usually covered in overalls and a denim shirt. He wore heavy work boots. His face was red from the sun until it turned white at his forehead, which he exposed when he tore off his cap and hurled it to the dirt when misfortune befell his team.

His players understood that he was simply re-enacting behavior he had witnessed by some professional manager or coach, and we took no offense. We did not feel threatened by him in any way.

When Lyle talked, his "L" and "R" sounds turned into w. He pronounced his name Wy-owe To-woe. As a game progressed, he would become upset when an umpire’s call went against him—even though the umpire was one of his players. He stomped the ground and shouted, “I pwo-test. I pwo-test this game.”

We were afraid he would suspend all play at that moment. “Lyle,” we said, “You can’t protest the game. You run the league. There’s no one to protest to.”

“I pwo-test anyway,” he grumbled, apparently lodging his complaint with heaven as play resumed.

Some boys liked to tease Lyle about how seriously he took these games, but they seldom made cruel remarks about his disabilities. When a few tried it, others silenced them. Lyle was hard to tease because he tended to go along with jokes, enjoying them even if he wasn’t sure what the point was.

Somehow, Lyle arranged occasional games against teams in Cedar Rapids. It’s hard to imagine how he did it, but he was a persistent man on the telephone, so one day we found ourselves, probably transported by our fathers, on a grassy field in a strange neighborhood. Here I had one of my most memorable moments in sports.

I was playing left field when the batter belted a hard line drive right at me. As the ball rocketed toward me on a straight line I couldn’t tell whether it was going to drop at my feet or scream on over my head. The ball came on, straight as a bullet, and I stood rooted by indecision.

Now the ball was upon me, clearly on its way over my head. In total futility, I jumped and thrust my glove into the air. The ball hit it and stuck. I brought the glove down and gazed in amazement at the ball. Then, because it was the third out, I trotted to our bench along the third base line.

Lyle was ecstatic. “I wish I had a Kodak of that,” he said. “I wish I had a Kodak of that.” He kept saying it, over and over, with a huge smile on his face. It was the most genuine, unrestrained praise I ever received from a coach, and his joy in my accomplishment was thrilling. I was too embarrassed to tell him the catch was sheer, blind luck.

THAT SMILING face is my last memory of Lyle, although I must have seen him countless times afterward, for he sold his popping corn (shelled or by the ear) door to door, attended every sports event in town and even took boys by bus to Cedar Rapids to see minor league baseball games.

Meanwhile, he struggled on to achieve his dream of forming a softball league.  By 1957, a decade after I played for him, he succeeded. That year, he formed a three-team league consisting of his own Touro’s Tomcats and teams led by two boys, Gordon Rundquist and Larry Smith.

After each game, he dutifully went to the offices of the Marion Sentinel to report the result.  Here is one game recap, in its entirety: “Touro’s Tomcats defeated Rundquist’s Yankees 13–4 Sunday at Emerson School. The same two teams meet again Aug. 11. Gary Larson was the winning pitcher for the Tomcats.”

That summer, however, the Sentinel reported that three Little League baseball teams had been formed and that there were plans for a fourth. These were real leagues, and the game was baseball, not softball. Lyle’s days as a softball commissioner were coming to an end.

ALTHOUGH HE continued for decades to appear at summer playgrounds to organize softball games, Lyle’s major interest shifted to bowling. He had been an ardent bowler for years. Pinsetters at Marion’s bowling alley remembered that when Lyle threw a ball, it remained airborne for about half the length of the alley, and the collision with the pins was thunderous.

For decades Lyle organized winter bowling leagues and tournaments for Marion boys. He solicited town merchants as sponsors, arranging for door prizes and trophies that Lyle, wearing a jacket and tie, presented at an annual supper at the Presbyterian Church. The supper was potluck, the food contributed by the boys’ parents.

This, finally, was Lyle’s league, and he loved it.  Scores were kept, standings were posted and his own Tomcats were in the mix.

Lyle kept autograph books with padded covers that he asked his bowlers to sign. There is no particular order to the signatures. A group of autographs from the early 1960s, for example, is followed by messages from five years later. The pages are filled with awkwardly scrawled messages of gratitude: “We had a great team” … “You are my best friend” … “You are the best coach.”

Lyle was the family celebrity, said his brother, Reginald. Whenever Reginald met someone new and introduced himself as a Touro, the other person would say, “Are you any relation to Lyle?”

After his parents had to leave the farm because of their age, Lyle boarded with a local family in town, helping support himself by doing odd jobs. He became a crossing guard at Starry Elementary School, drawn there by his love of children. Now in his sixties, he continued to promote an annual bowling tournament for Starry kids.

As he grew older, school officials became worried about his ability to do the job and about liability issues that might arise should there be an accident. When he reached 68, the board of education decided that Lyle would have to retire.

When Lyle Tuoro was forced into retirement, it was done with a celebration that included a certificate of appreciation from the Marion Education Association, a proclamation from the mayor declaring “Lyle Touro Day,” and the presentation of a plaque from the citizens of Marion and Cedar Rapids that read “Lyle Touro—Benefactor of Youth.”

Lyle’s boarding arrangement ended when he was about 70. He moved into an apartment on his own under the watchful eye of his nephew Ken and Ken’s wife, Linda, who visited Lyle often and taught him new skills in communications, hygiene and diet. He lost 94 pounds and learned to take better care of his money.

He lived this way for several years, then, after an extended stay in a nursing home, died in November 1995 at the age of 78. More than 150 people attended his funeral.

SPEAKING AT the funeral, his nephew’s wife, Linda Cory Touro, said, “Lyle was labeled mentally retarded, handicapped, limited and sometimes given much crueler labels. But Lyle never thought of himself as less than you or I. He accepted himself as just exactly what God intended him to be.

“I never heard him say a negative remark about any person, place, or thing. He never uttered a racial or sexist slur. He accepted and was serene.

“He believed in God without question or reservation. He perceived no person as his enemy. He treated all people as equals and with respect. He served his community. He gave unconditional love to family and friends and asked nothing in return.”

(This article is adapted from Dan Kellams’s book, “A Coach’s Life: Les Hipple and the Marion Indians.”  For more about the book, go to www.acoachslife.com)