Barry Lentz, middle, ready to call a World Series game.

 

 

 

 

 

By Mike London

Salisbury Post

KANNAPOLIS — The Kannapolis Cannon Ballers observed a moment of silence prior to Sunday’s game, as the electronic image of a smiling Barry Lentz appeared on the Atrium Health Ballpark scoreboard.

The box seats the Lentz family have owned for Kannapolis minor league baseball games since the Piedmont Boll Weevil days of 1997, were unoccupied on Sunday except for a bouquet of flowers. There was a shirt in the familiar blue shade favored by umpires folded over the middle chair.

Lentz, 65, was an icon in Kannapolis for his umpiring in the Dixie Youth Leagues. At the Dixie Youth League Majors World Series in Lumberton three years ago, Lentz was honored for 30 years of Dixie Youth umpiring and for 10 years of being chosen to umpire in the World Series.

Out of about 10,000 Dixie Youth umps, only 24 are picked to work the World Series.

In 2023, Lentz received the Dick Knox Distinguished Service Award from the North Carolina Athletic Officials Association.

For all those days spent calling balls and strikes and listening patiently to complaints without losing his cool, Lentz was honored by the Cannon Ballers at a 2022 game as part of their “Hometown Hero” series.

Lentz umpired games for older baseball players as well.

“I always was happy to see Barry’s name on the umpires list,” said West Rowan and Rowan American Legion coach Seth Graham. “He’ll be missed.”

Lentz was a chemistry teacher at A.L. Brown. A UNC Charlotte graduate, he began teaching relatively late in life, after years in the corporate world. He called teaching his superpower. He didn’t start working at A.L. Brown until 2012, but he made an impact at his alma mater. Both of his parents had been teachers at A.L. Brown.

Lentz’s father, Earl, was a social studies teacher who coached tremendous boys basketball teams in the late 196os and good ones in the early 1970s. He coached the Wonders to Western North Carolina High School Activities Association championships in 1966-67 and 1967-68. He was inducted into the Cabarrus County Hall of Fame in 2014.

Earl also is in the Catawba College Sports Hall of Fame, mostly for his prodigious slugging on baseball diamonds from 1954-56. He batted .371 in 1955 and once owned a 33-game hitting streak.

Barry was never a Hall of Fame athlete, but he was a Hall of Famer as a person, umpire and teacher.

“We were heartbroken to learn of the passing of a true Kannapolis icon,” the Cannon Ballers stated on social media. “Barry was more than a Cannon Ballers season ticket holder. He was family. A beloved educator at A.L. Brown, a respected umpire and coach to thousands, and a friend to so many of our fans, staff and community members. He brought kindness, wisdom and integrity to everything he did, whether it was in the classroom, behind the plate, or right here at the ballpark. His sudden passing leaves a tremendous void, but his legacy lives on in the lives he shaped and the community he helped build.”

Lentz did a lot of thankless work at A.L. Brown besides teach, like getting the students who were being picked up by cars safely on their way at the end of the school day — and getting everything set up for graduation ceremonies.

He shared both of those activities with fellow science teacher and former softball and football coach Scott Rodgers, who commented on Lentz on social media.

“Barry and I spent so much time on car rider duty together,” Rodgers said. “We had principals that would come and go and tell us how to do it. We did it Barry’s way.”

While coaching Dixie Youth baseball teams, Rodgers would sometimes bark at Lentz over calls he did not agree with, but Lentz never got angry and any heated words were forgotten by the time they were eating hot dogs together after the game.

Lentz also was in Rodgers’ Sunday school class.