Staff photo / Brian Yauger. Michael McMillion, right-center, Warren Mayor Doug Franklin, left-enter, and workers from the city of Warren, pose with the signage at the newly-dedicated Archie McMillion Field at Perkins Park. McMillion was a key figure in Warren baseball for nearly 60 years.

For decades now, baseball in the city of Warren has been inseparable from the name Archie McMillion.

McMillion, who passed away in June at the age of 90, spent 57 years of his life involved with the sport in some capacity. Whether it was coaching Warren G. Harding High School’s freshman baseball team, serving a 30-year term as president of Warren Little League, or just fundraising, if it had to do with baseball in the city of Warren, the man they called “Monk” likely had his fingerprints all over it.

Born in the deep south in 1933, McMillion worked from a young age. Despite his teacher’s plea for him to get an education, McMillion’s grandmother needed him to work and help put food on the table. His formal education stopped after fourth grade, but just a couple years later, McMillion had his own farm.

During his teenage years, McMillion and some friends boarded a bus to Chicago. They saved up their money to pay for their tickets, $17.71 each, (now roughly $225.41 adjusted to modern money), and due to Jim Crow laws, stood in the back of the bus during the entire 600-mile journey from Alabama until they crossed into Ohio.

Soon after, McMillion found himself in Warren.

That love of baseball, formed on the red clay dirt of Luverne, Alabama, with a corn cob ball and a glove made from various fabrics sewn together, never went away.

By 1951, McMillion participated in a handful of baseball tryouts around the state that put him on the radar of a handful of Major League teams, most notably, the St. Louis Cardinals. But when they offered, McMillion declined, having met his eventual wife of 72 years.

While a career in baseball wasn’t in the cards, the game never left his life.

When his son, Michael, began playing baseball, it didn’t take long for McMillion to return to the game. And coaching came naturally to McMillion, who often found baseball as a vehicle for self improvement.

Many people have said that baseball is like life, McMillion may have been the embodiment of that phrase.

Michael retained those lessons to this day.

“In a sense, baseball wasn’t over for him when we ended practice,” Michael said. “It was never over because he always saw an opportunity for someone else to improve. He saw an opportunity for them to be better human beings, because the simple fact is, if you got respect in sports, you’d carry it on to your personal life. Sometimes it was unorthodox, but the fact is, if he told you to do something, he wanted you to do it, no matter what.

“One time we were playing and he gave a signal to steal, and I didn’t. He called timeout, and he said, ‘I told you to steal, you should have stolen.’ The next pitch I stole, and it didn’t matter whether or not the catcher knew it, the pitcher knew it, or the whole team. That was the style of his team, and (he wanted us to learn that) some things you’ve got to do, just because of the fact that you have the ability to do it. It carries on to me right now in life.”

Receiving little formal education himself, McMillion made it a priority that each of his five kids received what he couldn’t.

All five of McMillion’s kids went to college, including Michael, who played football for Tennessee State.

And similar to how that kickstarted a new chapter in McMillion’s life, so did this.

Michael served as a recruiter and a local ambassador for Tennessee State and was instrumental in 15 kids from the Mahoning Valley receiving athletic scholarships, including Harding graduate Monti Davis, who went on to be selected in the first round of the NBA Draft by Philadelphia.

When someone is as active in the community for as long as McMillion was, lives are bound to be touched along the way.

One of those was Warren mayor Doug Franklin.

Having known McMillion from a young age, Franklin saw the man in action often, and saw his dedication to providing the younger generation with things he never had.

“He was just a pioneer in terms of just watching him day-to-day, particularly on the ball fields, how he dedicated seven decades of his life to youth, youth baseball, being an organizer, coach, and fundraiser,” Franklin said. “The first time that I went to Niagara Falls was by a trip that he organized, which was pretty cool, because we all came from the projects, and we hadn’t seen much outside of the boundaries of the city of Warren. But because he wanted us to have what other other young children had. He did the legwork and raised all the money, put us all on a bus, and we all went to Niagara Falls. Which at 10 years old, that was a big experience.

“He did it all. And I always say that he was the hardest working man that I’ve known, and the busiest adult that I have known. Not only did he give all of those decades to organizing and coaching baseball, he was also the owner of McMillion’s car wash, he had a food truck, he worked part-time at a funeral home, and did all of that and kept his family first. He led a pretty phenomenal life, and it’s one that our whole community benefited from.”

In his honor, Field No. 5, one of what used to be many fields that occupied Perkins Park, will forever bear his name.

“I do hundreds a year, but his contribution and impact on our community was so profound, I wanted to do something a little more significant and longer-lasting, and something that will touch generations to come,” Franklin said. “Dedicating that ball field at Perkins, and it’s one of the ones that still remains — we made a conscious decision to dedicate field No. 5, which will always be used for youth baseball and some adult baseball. We thought that was appropriate to sort of reflect what he’s given to us as a community.”

By those that knew McMillion, there could be at least a million stories told, all of which with different lessons hidden in them, but most of them would circle back to the diamond.

Have an interesting story? Contact Brian Yauger by email at byauger@tribtoday.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @_brianyauger.