Cleveland Baseball’s Mike and Sharon Hargrove: A Season Like No Other

By Marie Elium

It’s baseball season, or 2021’s version of it, and Mike and Sharon Hargrove will soon make their way back to Northeast Ohio, human harbingers of spring. 

Their cross-country trek from Arizona to their warm-weather home in Richfield is part of a baseball tradition for a couple whose lives have been long-intertwined with professional baseball, at least until the pandemic.

The former Indians player and manager and his wife had a year that was like no other in their 50-year marriage. They traded professional ballparks for the dusty confines of community ballfields, watching their grandkids play. They approached 2021 much like the rest of us, eager for life to return to normal, and wondering exactly what that might mean.

It turns out that the Hargroves have had a COVID year much like the rest of us. They’ve spent too much time away from their five children and soon-to-be 15 grandkids. (A grandbaby is due in April). They lost a beloved family member to COVID-19, celebrated Christmas via video chat, and marked their golden anniversary with just the two of them at a resort just down the street from their Tucson home. They watched “Designated Survivor” and “Schitt’s Creek.” 

More recently, the Hargroves grappled with balky websites to snag COVID vaccines, not entirely sure if they were successful until they showed up for the appointments. The pandemic’s inconveniences, disruptions and losses — big and small — have played out for this Major League couple in very familiar ways. 

Life, Interrupted
When we first caught up with Mike and Sharon Hargrove last year, they had just finished a baseball season without professional baseball for the first time in their marriage. The year’s  impact had not yet come into full focus. A baseball season put on hold is one thing, spending holidays and milestone events away from their kids and families was another. 

A long marriage entwined with spring training camps, Major League Baseball schedules and larger-than-life professional athletes (and egos), in a way, prepared the Hargroves for the pandemic. The world, baseball and otherwise, is unpredictable. This couple proves that the bounces are easier to navigate with a strong family at the core.

Family Matters
Grade-school sweethearts from Perryton, Texas, the Hargroves have a long baseball resume. Through Mike’s moves as a player for the Texas Rangers, San Diego Padres and Cleveland Indians, Sharon was at his side. With a growing family, Sharon became adept at packing up and moving, taking care of details while her husband focused on baseball. They followed the example of successful baseball families who seemed to thrive despite the pressures of professional sports. When Mike left for spring training, Sharon came along with the kids, communicating with teachers over the phone and managing schoolwork through the mail. Keeping the family together, even when the logistics made it difficult, was the key to a happy home life, even if home was a rental in another city for a couple of months.

Sharon chronicled life in baseball  with her 1979 book, “Safe at Home: A Baseball Wife’s Story.” Refreshingly open, delightfully breezy, Sharon recalls being a small-town girl living a big-league life. An example: “We weren’t in San Diego even long enough for me to get breast implants,” she says with a laugh.

On the Road
Hargrove played professional baseball for 12 years — from 1979-85 as a Cleveland Indian — and was later inducted into the Indians Hall of Fame. He went on to manage for 16 years, first the Indians, then Baltimore Orioles and finally the Seattle Mariners. During Mike’s career, the family moved more than 100 times, living in 23 cities and 13 states. When Mike left Seattle, the couple realized, for the first time in their marriage, they could live anywhere they wanted. Baseball no longer had a say in the decision. They chose Northeast Ohio. It felt like home and their kids (most of them) were relatively nearby. It fit.

Hargrove started work as a senior advisor for the Indians. The couple noted that last year, the only family member who got laid off because of the pandemic was Mike, when the Indians temporarily shut down the organization. 

Following their first year without professional baseball, returning to a COVID-era ball season this year will be an adjustment. Fan attendance will be limited to 30 percent capacity at Progressive Field for all April home games, with safety protocols expected to change as the season continues.

Hargrove says, don’t underestimate the value of playing with fans in the stands. “You can tell when a club is flat. The energy (comes) from the crowd; it’s like they roll their energy up in a ball and throw it at the players and the players throw it right back at them.”

The Hargroves are looking forward to returning to the ballpark, however that looks and feels. Says Sharon, “You can go down there and relax. Baseball lends itself to not only doing something that you enjoy but being with people you enjoy, visiting with people you like. You can catch up.”

As more people become vaccinated, the summer looks like it might be better than a year ago, both for Major League Baseball and for the Hargrove family. 

Accustomed to gathering several times a year, the Hargroves, their kids and grandkids are planning a beach vacation this summer. Eventually, slowly, life will start feeling familiar again.

“We’ve always known we’re blessed and we appreciate it,” Sharon says. “It’s going to be a new normal.”  

Maybe that’s what we all need from baseball this season, whether we find it in a Major League ballpark or on a sandlot down the street. Normal.