As Shohei Otani and the World Champion Los Angeles Dodgers opened the major league season in Japan, the SQRC Giants celebrated a new beginning for their biggest supporter.
Steve Reichardt, the SQ Giants’ lead outside coach, was born with polycystic kidney disease, which slowly degrades the functions of the kidneys. He said that prison baseball helped him maintain his health and sanity as he waited on the donor list for a new kidney until finally receiving the new kidney in February of this year.
Reichardt likened his wait time on the list to a rookie looking for his first at bat in the “bigs.”
“In 2022 my kidney malfunctioned down to 6% efficiency,” said the Giant’s co-lead volunteer alongside Mike Kremer. “It wasn’t the wait that was excruciating, it was the false acceptances that gnawed on me.”
Reichardt’s declining health made him eligible for the national transplant list.
But when he was closer than he had ever been to the finish line, his original donor caught COVID three weeks before the scheduled transplant.
“That made me an emotional roller-coaster, now I deal with depressive disorders and have become a huge advocate about the importance of mental health,” Reichardt said.
Reichardt was also offered a kidney by ex-SQ Giant pitcher, Jeffrey “Dewey” Dumont.
“Just think—this man, while an incarcerated resident, went through the required protocol to verify he was a match; and because of CDCR regulations he was not allowed to donate his healthy kidney to me,” said Reichardt. “For the others who are not as lucky as me, I sure wish that part of the law could change. Here was this man, with no hidden agenda, offering to give me a kidney while incarcerated; that was a miracle I’ll never forget,” said a teary Reichardt.
Reichardt, a native of Soma, who moved to San Francisco, spoke about his life in the Bay Area and about his passion for the game of baseball and for the SQ Giants.
“I’m a dedicated career man who split time between work and the game I loved,” said Reichardt. His passion for baseball started as he grew up in little leagues and baseball organizations. He joined the California Maritime Academy at age 18, where he earned a BS in Marine Engineering.
During his career, Reichardt became a licensed third assistant engineer for the commercial shipping industry before becoming a stationary engineer. Afterward, he traveled the world through the commercial shipping industry, pulling up in ports in Asia, Australia, and South America.
“My training ship was the steamship, the Golden Bear,” said Reichardt.
After his worldly travels, Reichardt came home to the Bay Area where he was able to rekindle his love of baseball. He played competitive fast pitch at Albert Park in San Rafael, slow pitch in Sonoma until 2002, and then at Redwood Empire’s men’s adult baseball league in 2005, where he first heard about the SQRC baseball team.
“Some of our opponents spoke of the SQ baseball team and I decided to take a trip to SQRC with a team called The Willing,” said Reichardt.
Reichardt caught the prison baseball bug and quickly decided to bring his own team called the Titans in for four consecutive years.
“I played against the SQ baseball team from ‘09–’14 and was approached to coach the SQ A’s in ’13 with the hopes of getting better competition,” Reichardt said.
Reichardt took to the Field of Dreams like a fish takes to water and has not left his coaching position since 2015.
Reichardt says prison baseball has been “a very large part of my support group that saved my life.”
He reminisced about the 2019 SQ A’s, who put together a 33-game winning streak and finished the season at 38-2.
“I firmly believed our team and coaching staff could have competed at the lower-to-mid levels of the minor leagues, and, or, at the college level,” said Reichardt.
Reichardt praised 2019 center fielder Austin Thurman, who was released in 2020 before playing in the Pecos Independent League with the Roswell Invaders. Thurman left baseball to raise a family and is now driving coast-to-coast in big rigs while living in Texas.
He reflected on the dedication of the baseball organization that participated in the 2020/21 COVID “game-less season.”
“Imagine being out there every day after the pandemic, practicing, just hoping a team can come in. No one does but our players missed nary a day of practice,” said Reichardt. “[Manager] Coach Will and the entire coaching staff and team should have been recognized for their sheer dedication and grit just for practicing without any games!”
Reichardt helped the SQRC baseball organization, now called the SQ Giants, become internationally known. He considers his best achievement to be improving the fellowship and notoriety of the SQ baseball program, which included helping secure the SF Giants as the teams’ new sponsor and his recruitment of Brian Nichol’s team, called the LA LOVE, as his highest profile moments. “Hearing Casey Affleck give SQ baseball a shout out on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball during the Yanks-Sox game was great,” said Reichardt.
After Reichardt recovers from his life-saving procedure, he will not lessen his commitment to the team’s rehabilitation. In fact, he hopes to expand the season to 50 games a year.
“In five years, I’d like to see SQ Baseball have five Brown Card holders with teams from Canada, South America, and across the U.S. come in, playing to extend the visibility of SQ baseball,” said Reichardt. “I hope the California Model will reach back to the roots of SQ’s oldest program—baseball—and allow outside visitors to come in to see the greatest incarcerated baseball team in the country.”
