ORONO, Maine -- Mark Letendre is a veteran of four decades in professional baseball, first as a trainer in the New York Yankees' farm system, then with the big-league club, followed by 14 years as head trainer for the San Francisco Giants and now as director of umpire medical services for Major League Baseball.
Nevertheless, he'll always be known as "Rookie."
Why he is known as Rookie started right here in Orono, on the University of Maine football practice field during pre-season camp back in 1974, when Letendre was a student athletic trainer, taking early steps toward a career he dreamed of as a kid.
Small, growing up in Manchester, New Hampshire, knowing he was not going to be a big, strong athlete, "all I wanted to be was an athletic trainer," says Letendre. "I always knew what I wanted to be."
Between his sophomore and junior years of high school he attended a training program at Northeastern University and prior to his senior year Letendre attended a similar program at UMaine, where he met Wes Jordan, athletic trainer for the Black Bears for 32 years.
A year later, Letendre was in Orono, on that practice field at a wooden training table used for travel, a freshman student trainer, wrapping ankles for walk-ons, first-year players and third-stringers with cloth wraps 96 inches long by about 2 1/2 inches wide, like the ones you buy at the drugstore. Meanwhile, the regular, full-time trainers taped the varsity players with real tape.
"I remember it like it was yesterday," says Letendre
Close by, Jordan was taping the ankle of one of the starting players.
"I had started the wrap," says Letendre. "You had to get cloth on cloth and the wrap slipped out of my hands and unrolled on the ground, much to my consternation."
"Wes went, 'Errr, What a ……. rookie'," Letendre recalls, noting that Jordan included an unrepeatable adjective. The nickname stuck.
"I made a lot of immature rookie moves and Wes would correct me," says Letendre, "never the same thing twice, and call me 'Rookie'."
Though UMaine didn't have an academic major in athletic training at the time, Jordan mentored students who went into careers as athletic trainers, among them Letendre, who was also busy, among other activities, officiating girls basketball, umpiring high school and college freshman baseball, serving as trainer for the Orono-Old Town Twins American Legion baseball team for two summers, and accelerating his course load so he could graduate in 3 1/2 years.
It was graduating a semester early that allowed Letendre to grab his opportunity to get into professional baseball in the spring of 1978. Yankees owner George Steinbrenner was looking for qualified trainers for his minor league teams. Yankees vice president Jack Butterfield, a UMaine Sports Hall of Famer, and Jordan were friends and Jordan recommended Letendre.
Hired for the Class AA West Haven, Connecticut, team managed by Stump Merrill, for whom Letendre had been trainer with the American Legion team, Rookie was on his way.
"He was a very good trainer," says Merrill. "He took his job very seriously."
After a year at West Haven came three years at Class AAA Columbus, Ohio, then the big leagues as assistant trainer for the Yankees for four years before he went to the San Francisco Giants as head trainer for 14 seasons. In 1999, he was named to his present position, overseeing the health care of the major leagues' umpires.
All the while, he never forgot the start he got under Jordan, who retired in 1997 and preceded him into the UMaine Sports Hall of Fame in 2002.
"Props to Wes Jordan and his vision," says Letendre, who was co-chair of the fund-raising committee that led to the establishment of UMaine's Wes Jordan Athletic Training Complex, where students are taught the skills they hope will lead them on the path blazed by Rookie.
The University of Maine Sports Hall of Fame will induct a 10-member class to the 195-member hall at a ceremony held on Friday, Oct. 5 at the Black Bear Inn and Conference Center. For a full list of this year's inductees, please click HERE.
-UMaine-
