Johnny Elias walked into the room bearing plaques and certificates, so you knew he was also bearing bragging rights about something.
One of Montreal’s best-known baseball figures, Elias had basketball on his mind this day.
The 69-year-old had recently been recognized by two organizations – the Florida High School Athletics Association and the Metropolitan Montreal Basketball Referees Association – for his 45 years of officiating as a referee.
“It’s something I’m really proud of,” said Elias, who also came with a fistful of photographs of some of the greatest names in baseball – all friends he still corresponds and hobnobs with while wintering in Florida.
Bill “Spaceman” Lee, Jim Bouton, Gary Carter, Stab Bahnsen, Tim Raines, Andre Dawson, Warren Cromartie, Dave Cash, Dennis Martinez, Ron Swoboda – you name them, and Elias has a ready anecdote, as well as photos to go along with it.
As far as basketball is concerned, the job of referee was something Elias sort of fell into years ago at Springfield College, known by some as the “birthplace of basketball.”
Elias was asked to ref a game and it fit him perfectly.
“Within three years, I was doing college ball,” he said, and there’s been no looking back.
Elias is considered one of the most reliable basketball referees in the business, officiating at college games in the United States and Canada until the 1990s, when he began to ref only high school and senior men’s basketball.
Elias also travelled to Israel several times to officiate in both baseball and basketball. He was assistant basketball coach when the Canadian basketball team won gold at the Maccabiah Games in 1997, and helped run the Canadian baseball team that took silver in 2005.
“I take it a year at a time,” Elias said, referring to his high school and senior men’s basketball activities these days. “If my health holds up, if I can still be mentally into the games, that’s the important thing, he said.
If the game is an obvious rout, it’s not necessarily much fun, “but if the game is very competitive, you naturally get into it much more.”
There is little doubt, though, that the “grand old game” remains the first love of the one-time southpaw pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles and Kansas City in the Florida State League. Elias, who for years pitched batting practice for the Montreal Expos, put together the team of “Quebec all-star” amateur players who went to Westfield, Mass., last year for the Vintage Baseball World Series. The exhibition tournament is replete with small fielding gloves, megaphones for the announcers and period uniforms.
Trouble was, Elias’s competitive spirit got the better of him – the team was so good it walked away with the championship. That didn’t exactly please his pal, Jim Bouton, the former Yankee pitcher and author of the tell-all book, Ball Four. Bouton, the CEO of the Vintage Baseball Federation, had approached Elias in the first place to recruit the Canadian team.
“I think that’s why we weren’t invited back this year,” Elias chuckled.
In Florida, Elias is also still active in the annual February fundraiser for the Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood, Fla., an exhibition Legends Game that sees the participation on the field of many a legend well past their prime.
“I still get a big kick out of it,” he said.
