Longtime Beecher Muskies veteran Todd Sippel, who began his career with the semi pro baseball team in 1989, remembers the conversations that began with manager Fred LeSage a little more than 20 years ago.

“I always told Fred, recruit who you want and if they beat me out, I’ll gladly step aside [as the starting third baseman],” Sippel said. “I never had to, but it’s getting to that point.”

As Sippel, who ceded his everyday third baseman role several years ago, has reached his mid-50s, the team’s all-time leader in eight different categories (games, plate appearances, at-bats, hits, runs, RBIs, walks, sacrifice bunts) is retiring after this season.

And in a surprise to Sippel, the Muskies honored their living legend with a jersey retirement ceremony in between games of last week’s doubleheader against the Oswego Cats at Beecher’s Sippel Memorial Field, named after Todd’s late father, Ernie.

As he entered the first game of the doubleheader to applause and a sea of familiar Muskies faces from the decades, Sippel thought something might be going on, and the lack of information the player-coach had on the potential happening was a little suspicious.

When he saw the scope of the celebration, which included a shadowbox handmade by teammate Brandon DuBois and a retirement chair made out of old bats, he realized even his suspicions couldn’t have led him to imagine such a ceremony, a point that was further proven when he saw former manager Rick LaMore make his way to the field.

“Seeing him really choked me up,” Sippel said. “He was my first coach in ‘89. ... That was the one that really got me.”

Scores of former teammates were present, as was his family — wife, Missy; daughters, Kaylie and Abby; and mother, Tawny Lattz. Even former college teammates at St. Francis joined the party, including current St. Francis AD Dave Laketa.

LeSage said the idea to do something for Sippel began the moment Sippel told him the 2024 season would be his last as a player — ironically a conversation the two had at the annual February cash bash fundraiser Sippel is in charge of.

With the idea in mind to retire Sippel’s jersey well before the conversation, that was LeSage’s starting point in planning a ceremony that saw plenty of help from plenty of other players.

DuBois and Corey Schultz did most of the brainstorming, with DuBois, an avid woodworker in his spare time, the perfect man to make the shadow box to display a jersey they had Missy swipe from Todd when he wasn’t looking, as well as the chair that was primarily made from DuBois’ broken bat collection.

Bryce Shafer and Mike Henderson spear-headed the fundraising for the day, and assistant coaches Joe Malia, Wendell Thomas and Brad Meyer helped put the day together, a day LeSage said he would do every time for a man who stepped up to help coach the team when LeSage took the managerial duties over from LaMore in 1994.

“The speech I gave, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say the Muskies probably wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for Todd; he’s done so much,” LeSage said. “ ... Todd and I are attached at the hip and have been forever. Our wives were probably never so grateful as they were for the invention of cell phones, so we wouldn’t tie up the house phone all day and night.”

The highlight of Sippel’s Muskies career was when he fielded the final out of their 2010 National Amateur Baseball Federation World Series championship victory, a chopper to third base. He was already a 21-year veteran by then and was well into the portion of his career the former Homewood-Flossmoor varsity baseball coach come to greatly enjoy, seeing the young college players come in and grow as players and people.

As members of the Chicago Suburban Baseball League, they often face teams full of college players and have several area players themselves come to play each summer, including some of Kaylie’s and Abby’s friends and Beecher classmates.

“It’s great. I like giving them any kind of insight or help I can give them,” Sippel said. “We have a dozen guys who have coached high school or college on the team, playing or coaching.

“Anything we can add to these young guys’ careers and help them out, that’s what means the most now.”

But nothing quite compares to the bond Sippel has built with other veterans, whether it’s LeSage, the four players who primarily helped with the ceremony, catcher Marty Coyle or several other players that have become extensions of his family.

“These are your friends you’ll always have … those are the relationships that matter,” Sippel said. “I don’t talk to many college teammates, but I’m close to the Muskies forever. So many have stayed with it for so long.”

His career was in question before the 2018 season after an ablation to address atrial fibrillation, a type of irregular heartbeat, but he recovered and even went on to flirt with a .300 batting average in 2019, posting a .297 clip. While he’s slowed down as he’s hit 55, currently 0-for-12 this summer, Sippel hopes there’s at least one more hit left in his bat.

Even more so, he hopes there’s time for one more run at an NABF World Series title. The tournament is moving from its longtime home in Battle Creek, Mich., to North Central College in Chicago, and the Muskies are receiving an automatic invitation as a host.

The Muskies sit at 18-10 and are heating up down the stretch run of the regular season, winners of seven of their last nine games.

“Our goal is to get through to pool play,” Sippel said. “Then anything can happen.”