A Tribute To Joe DeLuca: The Patriarch Of A Dynasty

“Remember kid, Heroes’ are remembered, but legends never die” – Babe Ruth in The Sandlot

Every kid has a Grandpa, some see them on holidays, some never see them, or if you were like me growing up, you saw yours every single week if not daily!  My Grandfather Joe DeLuca was a legend and everyone who met him would agree.  He was the Patriarch of a dynasty known as the “DeLuca Family”.

My Grandfather was not a man of material possessions, he could care less about that type of thing, his love was his family.  If he didn’t have the money, he made the device or gadget himself.  He never had cable until it was forced upon him by the greed of the cable companies late in his life, he didn’t need it.  He had the greatest story telling mind you would ever meet.  He never ordered a pizza, he didn’t need to, he was married to the greatest chef on the planet.

He never had a Facebook status, a tweet or a picture on Instagram, but his voice, his message and his wisdom was heard by anyone who met him and it carried on for 80 plus years.  He sacrificed his life fighting for his country after being drafted into the Korean War.  Leaving his newlywed bride at home and not getting to meet his oldest child Josephine until she was nearly six months old.

We live in a world now where people look for every single reason not to work, and this man supported his family of 10 on a single postal workers salary.  People now a days complain about, “a living wage”, try the Joe Deluca budget and wage on for size. A postal worker employment he had for 35 years until retiring in the fall of 1992.

He wore many hats and that is how I would like to remember him.

The Husband Hat – For 66 years he was married to my Grandma Rosemarie Lombardo DeLuca.  In my eyes, the greatest woman of all time.  My God was she a saint on Earth.  Grandpa was loyal, treated her like a queen and always looked at her as if it was the first time he saw her.  She never got old in his eyes, never got sick.

She was his queen and he treated her as such.  He treated his wife like all men should treat their wives, with honor and respect.

The Father Hat – Eight kids, Eight!  He was so proud of that and proud of the fact that he sent them to “St. John Marshall”.. It’s sad but also funny that he would often tell the story of an old bitty aunt who told him and Grandma they should stop after two children.  He was so insulted by that comment and talked about it for years.  One reason of many that they had 8 kids.

His greatest accomplishment was his children and grandchildren.  8 Children, 19 grandchildren, 9 great grandchildren.  The holidays were the best, he had name tags for everyone, beautiful place settings and a great routine of asking each kid why they were there that day. He was big on tradition, and it carried down for generations.  It is a major part of my life, and I see it in my young daughters lives as well.

He treated us all equally and loved us.  There were no favorites just love for everyone.  I’ll never forget one day walking home from school when two bullies tried picking on my brother Donald when out of nowhere, here comes Grandpa flying out of his car, and scaring the bullies straight.  He put the fear of God in those little punks. I bet they still have nightmares about it 35 years later.

The Coach – Huntley Hardware was the name of the little league team he coached.  “Don’t you throw that ball Frankie”, was a story he loved to tell!  He gave back to the community by coaching and also teaching PSR. This was after working all day and also helping raise 8 kids.

He taught me how to play baseball and the stories I have are legendary because of it.  I’ll never forget being 4 years old and instantly falling in love with baseball.  I loved the game, despite the Indians being horrible at the time.  Grandpa told me he was going to come over and teach me how to swing a bat. He had coached Little League for years prior so clearly, I trusted his knowledge.  He also raised 3 boys who played baseball.

Visions of hitting homeruns out of Cleveland Municipal Stadium where quickly dashed when Grandpa showed up with a bat and a bag full of shuttlecocks instead of baseballs.  I was confused, but his mission was to teach me bat control, wrist control, swing speed and motion before I hit actual balls, the shuttlecocks where the perfect training tool. He had me hit one after another as he was on his knees tossing them up two feet away from me as I hit them off of a fence. It worked!

Eventually we would graduate to real balls and heavier bats, but I’ll never forget those earlier lessons with Grandpa. We loved baseball so much that we’d even play imaginary baseball with Grandpa inside of his house during the winter. I’ll never forget one epic game when he was pitching and had me down in the count 0-2.

As he wound up and threw the heater towards me, I thought fast and leaned into the pitch, taking one for the team. Again, this was IMAGINARY baseball.  It’s just who we were and how we had fun.

The Sports Fan – Back in 2013 when it came time to write my first book on Cleveland Sports, it wasn’t Lebron James I turned to for help, it wasn’t Jim Brown or Jimmy Haslam, it was Joe DeLuca!  He loved to tell the story about being at the last Cleveland Rams game in 1945, and the very first Cleveland Browns game in 1946 against the Miami Seahawks.

He was a die-hard fan and would argue you to the death that Marion Motley was the greatest Cleveland Brown running back of all time, not Jim Brown. My goodness did he hate Jim Brown. I would tease him and tell him I was going to have Jim Brown serve him a bowl of soup in that hat he always wears.

The Greenskeeper Hat – His lawn was pristine.  There was never a blade of grass out of sorts and when you ran across it, it was as if you were on the 50-yard line of Browns stadium.  I’ve never seen a nicer lawn in my life.  I don’t know how he did it!

The Man – I can sum everything up with this.  He was 17 and madly in love with my Grandma when he had to move away from her and John Adams High School, to finish his schooling at Bay Village.  It broke his heart but he made it work taking several buses just to go see her.

He got married at 19, and was only married a few months before the draft took him away from his pregnant wife.  It broke his heart, but he kept moving forward.  In 2004 he lost his son Peter, and in 2010 he lost his daughter Josephine to cancer, but he kept moving forward.

He was not a “woes is me” kind of guy.  He was a proud man who loved his Lord, his family and most of all, his wife!  Grandma left us all in the summer of 2019 and went up to heaven. I think about my Grandparents every single day.  Every single time I go to cover a game, I think about how cool it is that Grandpa showed so much interest in what I do.  I really believe I made him proud.

In conclusion I could have written 15 pages if not 1500 on Joe DeLuca, but as his 5^th oldest grandchild, I was spoiled rotten to have him in my life for 39 plus years and no amount of words can match that or make it come alive.  I hope I did my best.

My earliest memory of Grandpa is the one I will close with.  I was barely two years old and burnt myself badly, it is my earliest memory of life quite frankly.  I still remember being on the gurney as they loaded me in the ambulance and there was Grandpa standing over my head with a tear in his eye.  He was watching over me, just as he is right now as I type this.

I live in a world where I have to “self-promote”, I have no choice, it comes with the territory of sales and marketing. But quite frankly, no matter how many articles I write, books I sell or anything like that, the proudest thing I can call myself is a DeLuca.

I love you Grandpa, I love you so much, I hope that I made you proud.  I did everything I could.  You know, batting third in the Grandson Lineup is not the always the easiest thing to do, but I wouldn’t change my spot for any amount of money in the world.

As I wrote the tribute to my Grandma, I couldn’t stop crying and feeling sad, this one is much different.  I haven’t stopped smiling, I haven’t stopped feeling proud.  I feel this way because Grandpa is re-united with his Queen.  He is also re-united in the gates of Heaven with his two children he lost, his parents and the entire roster of the 1946 Cleveland Browns.

Right now, up in heaven, Grandpa is holding court with the 1946 Browns as Paul Brown is right by his side and Grandma is serving up pasta.

REST IN PEACE my beautiful and loving Grandfather.

Yours truly

#5 of 19

“Vincent”

A Tribute To Rosemarie DeLuca: The Matriarch Of A Dynasty