Cousin Jared Hoying - Dave’s Midwestern Ohio Memories

A Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s.

Cousin Jared Hoying

You read it right, major leaguer Jared Hoying is my cousin!. Why not pile on the bandwagon like everyone else? It’s been great fun seeing him make his major league debut and get his first hit, RBI and run scored. His grandfather is my uncle and his grandmother is my wife’s aunt; so we are related two ways. Jared’s grandfather was a great athlete, playing baseball and basketball for Ft. Loramie High School before joining the Army in WWII. And his grandmother’s family had many outstanding athletes as well, so no surprise Jared’s a natural. But he doesn’t know me from Adam, as we left town years before he was born in May, 1989. However, no doubt we met at some family reunion over the years, like in the photo below from 1997, when Jared would have been 8 years old. He has his baseball cap on and is sitting in front of his grandparents in the highlighted area. The Hoying family farmhouse in St. Patrick's is shown in the background.

Jared’s grandfather had 10 brothers and sisters, one of whom was my mother. And almost every weekend during the summer, our family would get together with one of the other 10 families for a visit and a baseball or softball game would breakout. The makeshift ball diamonds at each venue were something to behold. They were as unique to us as Wrigley Field and Fenway Park. For example, our diamond, superimposed on the aerial photo below, was situated between our farm buildings, with the first base line abutted by our corn crib, third base running along our hog stables, a fence with a corn field beyond in left field (ala Field of Dreams), the barn like a red monster akin to the green monster in Fenway making up right field, center field terraced up a hill to the upper level of the bank barn like the outfield at Cincinnati’s old Crosley Field, and Mom’s garden was a little ways behind home plate like the ivy at Wrigley. 

Needless to say, all those idiosyncrasies of the field created situations to argue a play, just like in the Major Leagues. The ground rules were made up on the fly, and with the competitive nature of our family, there were some heated arguments , accentuated by the fact that we were all stubborn Germans. But eventually a compromise was reached to resolve such issues and allow play to continue; life lessons learned on the fly, I guess.

Jared and his wife Tiff are expecting a child soon, and no doubt that child will inherit the same family spirit that drove Jared to his success. What a memorable year for Jared and his family, as well as for this long distance relative of his just along for the ride.