At 85 years young, "Mr. Beckum's" efforts keep baseball fields in Milwaukee looking pristine

MILWAUKEE (WITI) -- The biggest names in baseball are getting together in Minneapolis this week for the Major League All-Star Game. Meanwhile, back in Milwaukee, one of the biggest fixtures of the sport in the city will be doing what he always does.

James Beckum gets up and gets going.

"I'm out here every morning early," Beckum said.

He has a job to do.

"I'm down here about 7 -- getting the field ready," Beckum said.

Just off the interstate on Milwaukee's near north side sit five diamonds - four of them Little League size, one of them 90 feet. Collectively, they are Beckum's baby.

"I guess you could call it that because I've been doing it for 50 years now, so it's a lot of fun and I love for my fields to be in good shape for my kids to play ball," Beckum said.

Mr. Beckum, as he is known to literally thousands of kids who are in or have been through the Beckum-Stapleton Little League got involved in the sport in Milwaukee in 1964. In 1976, he was instrumental in getting the first diamond finished at Carver Park.

This summer, 21 teams are in the league, and all those kids are playing on fields prepared and maintained by an 85-year-old man.

"He's the caretaker -- takes care of the fields. He's meticulous. You have to have the lines straight and everything has to be perfect -- just like at the Major League field. That's what he does, and it's a great honor even to be here talking about Mr. Beckum," Glen Matthews, the Assistant Executive Director of Beckum-Stapleton Little League said.

"I don't have rain-outs. If it stops raining at 1 o'clock, this field is ready at 5:30," Beckum said.

Away from baseball, Beckum retired after more than three decades of working for the Ladish company, but when you've played semi-pro and Marine Corps. baseball and then coached and even umpired, you don't pull away from the game. Even at 85, Beckum sure isn't.

"My wife has got some plans for me to quit. (Her plans haven't been my plans) for quite some time, because she just goes along with me," Beckum said.

"I have yet to see him slow down. He is still going. He's like that Energizer Bunny -- he's still moving, which is great. It keeps him active -- keeps him 85 years young," Matthews said.

These days, Beckum does some of his best work at James W. Beckum Park -- the county named part of Carver Park after the man who is the park in 2013.

"I do whatever it takes to get the job done," Beckum said.

Mr. Beckum says he takes great pride in seeing how players from his program have gone on to be successful in their lives. Among them are local political figures Willie Wade and Willie Hines, as well as NBA player Devin Harris.