'Back to his roots.' William 'Bill' Richardson remembered for Cape Cod connections

Former New Mexico Gov. William "Bill" Richardson pitched for the Cotuit Kettleers in 1967, on Cape Cod, and that summer had a lasting effect on him.

"The importance of protecting our land, our heritage, our resources, the ecosystem, the wildlife, was started here,” Richardson told the Times in 2015. “This land needs to be protected, and there should be no argument.”

On Friday, the diplomat and one-time presidential candidate died peacefully in his sleep at age 75 in his family's summer home in Chatham. He was a part-time resident of Chatham and still lived in New Mexico.

Bill Higgins, a former Times sports editor, said he met Richardson around 2016 at an event celebrating the life and legacy of Arnold Mycock, who was known as "Mr. Kettleer" and died after 67 years of service to the Kettleers and the Cape Cod Baseball League.

"I was aware of Bill over the years, of course. Throughout the years, the Cape league has produced many major league players and players who go on to do significant things in their life in baseball and beyond baseball," said Higgins.

Higgins also has a friend who played as a pitcher at Boston College when Richardson played for Tufts University, and the two sometimes played each other during their college season.

"As life went on and Bill became this significant figure as a candidate for president and all the other things he did in his professional life, every now and then we'd be reminiscing about the Cape league days," said Higgins.

From being a strong advocate of the Eldredge Public Library in Chatham to playing in the Cape Cod Baseball League, Richardson built lifelong ties to Cape Cod.

When he was visiting in the summer, Richardson consistently made an effort to attend Cotuit games and threw out the ceremonial first pitch a few times at Lowell Park over the years, said Judy Scarafile, former president of the Cape Cod Baseball League, serving from 1991 to 2015. While she did not know him personally, she called him a loyal supporter of the league.

"That spoke volumes," said Scarafile. "We all thought it was cool he was coming back to his roots and visiting us in the summer."

During the 1967 season, Richardson appeared in ten games and had a 1.04 earned run average, according to the Cape Cod Baseball League website. The earned run average is calculated by the number of runs scored by the batter divided by the number of innings pitched and multiplied by nine for the number of innings that make up the game.

"We were saddened to hear of the passing of former governor, congressman, diplomat and Cape League alum Bill Richardson, who played for both Cotuit (1967) and Harwich (1968). Our thoughts are with his family at this difficult time," said the Cape Cod Baseball League in a statement issued to the Times by league public relations director Michael Lane.

'In the service of others'

Over his political career, he became a congressman from New Mexico, ambassador to the United Nations, U.S. Secretary of Energy, Democratic presidential candidate and governor of New Mexico.

Richardson's death was confirmed by the Richardson Center for Global Engagement, which Richardson ran. Mickey Bergman, the center's vice president, said Richardson "lived his entire life in the service of others" including both his time in government and his subsequent career helping to free people held hostage or wrongfully detained abroad.

“There was no person that Gov. Richardson would not speak with if it held the promise of returning a person to freedom. The world has lost a champion for those held unjustly abroad and I have lost a mentor and a dear friend," said Bergman.

What were Bill Richardson's first ties to Massachusetts?

Richardson, who was half-Mexican, was born in California and grew up in Mexico City. His ties to Massachusetts began when he attended Middlesex School, a prep school in Concord, and graduated in 1966. There, he excelled at baseball, leaving the school a plaque of a pitcher carved in front of a map of Mexico.

He then went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1970 from Tufts and a Master of Arts degree in 1971 from the Tufts Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

Richardson also met his wife of over 50 years, Barbara Flavin Richardson, in Massachusetts while they attended different schools in Concord. They married in 1972 in Tufts' Goddard Chapel in Medford.

Bill Richardson and wife bought a vacation home in Chatham

As a lifelong baseball fan, Richardson played collegiate summer baseball in the Cape Cod Baseball League in 1967 and 1968, pitching for the 1967 Cotuit Kettleers.

In 2011, he and his wife became homeowners in Chatham. They paid $1.67 million for a house on Fox Pond and Strong Island Road overlooking a pond, according to a deed registered with the Barnstable County Registry of Deeds.

At the time of the purchase, the lawyer who handled the sale, Howard C. Cahoon Jr., told the Times the Richardson family spent two weeks or so on the Cape, visiting Barbara Flavin Richardson's parents. They summered in Harwich Port until her parents died in 2010.

Eldredge Library support

He also became a strong supporter of the Eldredge Public Library, holding many talks there where he spoke about his political career and different foreign policy matters, such as U.S.-North Korean relations.

In 2015, Richardson pledged his support for a "Keep Lowell Park Green" fundraiser at the Cotuit Center for the Arts. The project sought to purchase and preserve the 19 acres of woodlands surrounding Lowell Park.

“My experience in Cotuit made me a conservationist because of my work when I was a player, of working the forest, seeing it,” Richardson said.

Zane Razzaq writes about housing and real estate. Reach her at zrazzaq@capecodonline.com. Follow her on Twitter @zanerazz.

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Cape Codders recall Bill Richardson for faithfulness to region