John 'Doc' Yallaly was a legendary figure - on and off - the baseball diamond

John “Doc” Yallaly spent four decades leading the Cape Girardeau American Legion Post 63 baseball team, and in doing so, the Ste. Genevieve native won a pair of Legion state championships (1973 and 1994). However, those victories – and the multitude of others he led that program to from 1956 through 1996 – pale in comparison to Yallaly’s highest achievement.

Yallaly didn’t just win a lot of baseball games. He won life.

“Oh,” former American Legion player, and great-nephew of Yallaly, Robert Kern said, “the man lived a great life.”

Yallaly, 93, Cape Girardeau, passed away on Monday, and the tales of his legacy – on the diamond and off it - have flowed all week.

“He was amazing,” Kern said. “I can’t say enough good things about him.”

And he was only partially speaking of his baseball experience under Yallaly.

Yallaly was referred to as ‘Doc,’ because, as the son of a veterinarian in Ste. Genevieve, he too, learned the family business, but in an unofficial manner.

“His dad taught ‘Doc’ everything,” Kern explained. “’Doc’ would castrate pigs for farmers. He would deliver a calf. That is why they called him ‘Doc.’”

Yallaly never lost his love of a lot of things, such as his surviving wife, Barbara, animals, baseball, poker, and chewing tobacco, some of which could intermingle.

“We would be riding to a game,” Kern recalled, “and he would have his teeth in his shoe and his chew in his mouth.”

Cape Girardeau resident Rex Crosnoe also played for Yallaly, and he said the chew and the baseball mixed, but not the poker.

“Usually,” Crosnoe said, “we would not play on a Thursday, because Thursday was his ‘poker night.’”

Yallaly played poker until the end of his life, and at the end, he had assistance from his daughter, Kathy Coffman, who would read him the cards because of his loss of vision.

On Friday, Yallaly was buried at St. Mary Cemetery in Cape Girardeau, with a deck of cards and a 50-cent piece from his poker playing.

Yallaly not only mentored generations of ball players throughout Southeast Missouri on the art of the game but both Crosnoe and Kern said he taught his players about life.

“He made it fun to play,” Crosnoe said. “It was fun to go to the (ball) park.”

Crosnoe, who went rabbit hunting with Yallaly in the off-season, said there were times in doubleheaders where he “would want to sit out one of the games, so I could just sit and talk with ‘Doc.’”

“He was kind of a second dad to a lot of us,” Crosnoe said. “He would come to our high school games.

“He was around all of the time.”

In paying homage to Yallaly, Crosnoe now oversees the American Legion Post 63 baseball program each summer.

Kern wasn’t shy about speaking of Yallay’s impact on his life.

“He changed my life,” Kern said succinctly.

Kern was a troubled teen in Vandalia, Missouri, and didn’t have the opportunity to play baseball in the summers. He moved to Cape Girardeau to live with his mother and ended up helping Cape Central to the 1994 MSHSAA Class 4A state title.

“I went from, if I did anything to get in trouble again, I was going to juvenile detention,” Kern said, “to being drafted by the Chicago Cubs (in the 36th round of the 1995 Draft) in 18 months.”

Like everyone who knew Yallaly, despite his being inducted into the American Legion Baseball Hall of Fame in 2023, those in his life were more impressed with him as a person than a coach.

In 1967, Yallaly helped establish VIP Industries, which is an organization that serves individuals with a broad spectrum of intellectual and developmental disabilities.

“There were several years,” Crosnoe said he was told, “where ‘Doc’ volunteered over 2,000 hours for VIP Industries.”

Yallaly was recognized by countless organizations throughout his life.

He earned such honors as:

2017 — Parks & Recreation Cape Noon Optimist Club Youth Sports Lifetime Achievement Award.

2014 — Distinguished Legionnaire for the State of Missouri.

2011 — Elks Distinguished Citizenship Award.

2003 — VIP Industries Founders Award.

2003 — Southeast Missourian Spirit of America Award.

1998 — Missouri Veterans Home Volunteer of the Year

1981 — Inducted into the Southeast Missouri Amateur Baseball Hall of Fame.

When Kern helped Cape Central win the baseball state championship, the school ordered rings for the players, which cost $250. Kern didn’t have the money, but Yallaly collaborated with a couple of his acquaintances and bought Kern the ring.

“That is who he was,” Kern said of Yallay’s generosity.

That story speaks to Yallay’s character, but Kern can also top that one by a mile.

When one of Yallay’s two brothers left his wife, ‘Doc’ bought a house for his sister-in-law and his nieces and nephews, and lived in the basement while the family stayed upstairs.

“He was a unique man,” Crosnoe said, “who touched so many lives.”