Chris Furgerson
Forgive me for the length of this story I just posted to Facebook. I played baseball at GV with Al when I was a freshman, he was a senior. I hope you enjoy this. My sincere condolences... Chris Furgerson
Al "Mad Dog" Whitlow...
It’s January 1974. I find myself at Grand Valley State College starting workouts and tryouts for the baseball team. I’m a freshman and frankly pretty naïve. Practices start and as it goes along I’m thinking I have a real good chance of making the team and maybe even being the starting catcher. That is, until Coach Phil Regan (former Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, and Chicago White Sox pitcher and Fireman of the Year award winner - he's a big deal at GV!) has a meeting for all of us prospects. I’m sitting there listening to Regan talk, fairly sternly, at the front of the classroom we were in. The door to the room behind me opens and in walks this guy, older than all of us, long blonde hair, Fu Manchu, about 5'10" or so, 220 pounds and solid. Regan stops his stern speech, gets this HUGE smile on his face, and says "Al! Great to see you could make it!" I look at the guy sitting next to me, whom I don’t know, and ask him “Who the hell is that?" He says “That’s Al Whitlow, he’s the catcher." Well, I was naïve but not stupid and its easy to see judging by Reagan’s response I sure as hell ain’t gonna be the catcher that year! (never did catch there)
Anyway, I do go on to make the team. Al is the clear leader of the squad. I find out Al is a senior, was a Vietnam veteran and is definitely older than most of the rest of us, maybe 24 or 25 years old at the time (I was 19). The first practice he shows up he’s got an old beat up faded green sweat shirt, sleeves cut off at the shoulders, upper arms bulging, with a war caricature on the front. We go through the season and for reasons still unknown to me he kind of takes me under his wing. When we would go to road baseball games the school gave us something like $5 for meal money. Most of the guys would be looking for a McDonald’s or Burger King or something. Not Al, he would say "To hell with that, come on Furgie" and to some others. We'd go to Red Lobster or something like that, places this Dryden boy had rarely, if ever, been LOL
I guess I must have had some resemblance to him because my good buddy Jonesy christened me "Mad Puppy" after Al "Mad Dog" Whitlow. We get through the season with some success, I think Grand Valley's best season to date. After the playoffs it’s arranged that I am going to play summer baseball in Muskegon on the same team with Al. They said they would get me a job but that kind of fell through and I only played a few games, so I had to move back home for the summer and go to work at Champion. That was the last time I ever saw Al.
Over the years, especially since social media, I tried to find out where he was and was never really able to find out. Dave Chrisinske and I hooked up on FB after decades and he had a little info. Like most of us at Grand Valley at the time we had gone our own ways and hadn’t kept in touch.
Well, I just found out today from Dave that Al has passed away. He was 72 years old.
I am reminded of him daily, even hourly, because I named my rental company Mad Puppy Enterprises and have a certain Facebook page of the same name. I know nothing of his life after GV, but to me Al was a great guy and I owe him a lot from those college days.
Rest in peace, Mad Dog...
