Cuicchi: Mel Didier’s passing recalls prominence of his Louisiana baseball family
From SABR member Richard Cuicchi at Crescent City Sports on September 13, 2017:
Mel Didier’s passing on September 11 is a reminder that few baseball families have had as big an impact on a specific area of the country as his family did in South Louisiana.
Didier, whose professional baseball career spanned nearly fifty years, made his mark in baseball as a well-regarded scout and front office executive for several major-league clubs. Named after Mel Ott, he was involved in administrative posts at the start-up of three expansion franchises: 1969 Montreal Expos, 1977 Seattle Mariners and 1997 Arizona Diamondbacks. Up until the time of his death, he was a special assistant with the Toronto Blue Jays organization.
Mel’s father, Irby Didier, was the patriarch of the sports family, which included six sons (Pearce, Clyde, Robert, Mel, Raymond and Gerald) who played, coached, managed and scouted at various levels of high school, collegiate and professional baseball. Irby played semi-professionally (for Marksville), as did Pearce (an outfielder with Thibodaux and manager of the Homer Louisiana Oilers) and Clyde (a catcher for the Baton Rouge Red Sticks).
Read the full article here: http://crescentcitysports.com/mel-didiers-passing-recalls-prominence-of-his-louisiana-baseball-family/
Originally published: September 14, 2017. Last Updated: September 14, 2017.