James Beckum, Who Taught Hundreds of Children Baseball and Self-discipline, Dies at 95

Till he was nearly 90 years outdated, James Beckum cared for the baseball diamonds the place his Little Leaguers performed with fastidiousness and pleasure. He reduce the outfield grass. He picked up litter. He drove the bottom paths in his little orange tractor, smoothing the filth. His pastor, Johnny White Jr., stated, “Once I would name his home on the lookout for him, and his spouse would reply the telephone, I’d say, ‘Is Brother Beckum there?’ And he or she’d say, ‘No, he’s down on the park, enjoying within the filth.’ ”

Beckum was a founding father of the Beckum-Stapleton Little League on the North Facet of Milwaukee, one of many metropolis’s and the area’s most deprived neighborhoods. Based in 1964, Beckum-Stapleton is believed to be one of many oldest Little League exterior of the South that’s traditionally Black. And nearly proper up till his demise, on Nov. 11 at age 95, Beckum was its steward and guiding gentle.