Larry Simcox passes the torch on America’s pastime
“America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers,” Jones said in the movie, his voice as gravelly as the rocks he stood on during the speech. “It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.”
Baseball’s emergence as America’s pastime feels even more special this year, as the country’s 250th anniversary is just three days away.
And in the Knoxville area, no one has seen more in the sport than Larry Simcox.
As a player, Simcox rose from Cleveland State Community College to an All-SEC career at Ole Miss, ultimately spending two years as a minor league shortstop.
As an assistant coach at Ole Miss and Tennessee, Simcox oversaw the development of 10 first-round MLB Draft picks, 42 All-SEC players and more than 150 professional players, including Hall of Famer and Knoxville native Todd Helton, his son A.J. Simcox and Farragut standout Nicky Delmonico.
Now, after a quarter-century coaching college baseball, Simcox has worked with athletes across the area for almost two more decades at his Diamond Baseball facility in west Knoxville.
Beyond the signatures and memorabilia in the lobby,
Simcox and the Diamond team have produced approximately 350 college baseball players, all of whom are showcased along a wall near the batting cages.
So, yes, it’s safe to say Simcox knows a thing or two.
As a kid in 1960s Chattanooga, Simcox tuned into the game of the week every Saturday, then ventured into the backyard, dreaming of Mickey Mantle.
Once the Braves relocated to Atlanta, he caught on to Hank Aaron, too.
“Everything he did, I tried to emulate, from the on-deck circle to the way he swung the bat,” Simcox recalled with a chuckle. “I wasn’t a power
hitter, but he was still my favorite player. I played basketball and football like a lot of kids, but baseball was always my true love.”
Over time, that love took him from the fields of Chattanooga — where Simcox watched his father play pickup games as a child — to SEC fields as a player and coach.
As a part of the Tennessee staff under Rod Delmonico, he stood on the chalk line in Omaha, Nebraska, at the College World Series.
Through every circumstance, Simcox’s affair with the game and its hold on America only blossomed.
“I’ve been very blessed to coach a lot of players who have gone on to have great careers, and hopefully I’ve played a part in that,” he said. “Then anytime you hear the national anthem at a game, it means something, but when you’re in a uniform in a big moment, it’s even better.
“I remember being 18 in the Dizzy Dean World Series, lining up and it gave me chill bumps,” Simcox continued. “In a regional here at Tennessee or in Omaha for the College World Series, it gives you goosebumps. When you think of the history of this country, baseball has been the sport. They call it the national pastime for a reason. It’s been a part of the foundation of this country from a sporting standpoint.”
Even after Simcox thought about stepping away from coaching in 2007, that foundation and love drew him back in.
He put on a few hitting clinics at Farragut High School, borrowing the Admirals’ cages with the blessing of former skipper Tommy Pharr.
Eventually, more kids started showing up, and Simcox founded Diamond Baseball with Jeff Senzel in 2009.
He returned to UT to coach under Dave Serrano from 2015 to 2017, then retired for good and has been with Diamond ever since.
Through it all, he has cherished the ability to pass on his favorite pastime to the next generation.
“It’s been a real blessing to be around the game and teach it,” he said. “Our teams have had a lot of success over the years, but I always say our scoreboard is the guys on that wall of college signees. That’s what this place was set up for, and it brings me a lot of pride.”
