AYER — With the infield lines faded and the white chalk in the batter’s box barely visible, Kenny Lewis stood near home plate of the Ayer-Shirley baseball field on April 4 with a bat slung over his right shoulder.
And an angel over the other.
After the recent loss of his father, who was also named Kenny and served as the head groundskeeper at Ayer-Shirley, the past few months have been a bit of a blur for the 17-year-old from Ayer.
They’ve hit him pretty hard.
Still, Lewis has emerged from a cloud of heartbreak with a swell of support behind him — on the same field his father helped to maintain. In a time of tragedy, Lewis carries his dad’s memory with him on the diamond.
“It makes me feel like I have something to play for,” said Lewis, a senior on the Ayer-Shirley baseball team. “It feels good knowing that he’s there with me.
“He was there for us whenever we needed him, and I’ll always love him.”
Finding an escape
Over the past few years, whenever Kenny Lewis arrived at Ayer-Shirley Regional High School, he’d be greeted by his father with a fist bump.
Throughout the course of a day, Lewis would see his dad at lunch, inside the gym or outside on the fields. He didn’t have to search very far to find his father — and best friend.
“It was a nice, little escape for me,” Lewis said. “If I was having a tough day or boring day, I could just go out and see him and talk to him and just catch up. It was just good to talk to him.
“He’d always be happy,” Lewis added. “He tried to be friends with everyone. He was a very outgoing guy, he was funny. You could talk to him about pretty much anything.”
Known for his infectious personality and witty humor, Kenneth F. Lewis battled Systemic Lupus Erythematosus for over 20 years. The longtime Ayer resident spent the last five years on dialysis while he waited for a kidney transplant. In August, the 55-year-old needed to have a heart valve replacement, and the surgery went off without a hitch.
But right around Christmas, Kenneth Lewis started to feel sick.
“He thought he had a cold,” said his wife, Amanda. “He just couldn’t seem to shake it.”
On Jan. 4, Kenneth Lewis went into the emergency room with an infection in his heart valve. A week later, he watched his son, via FaceTime from his hospital bed, play in a high school basketball game at TD Garden.
Eight days after that, Kenneth Lewis died unexpectedly due to complications from surgery.
“They did everything they could,” Amanda said. “They just couldn’t stop the bleeding. That was sort of the end.”
“It was just destroying. I was done,” Kenny Lewis said. “I just really didn’t know what to do. I was lost.”
Three days following his father’s death, Lewis returned to the court to play in a basketball game on the road. His team ordered white wristbands and wrote “KL” on them in black marker to pay tribute to their longtime custodian and former youth coach.
“My team was there for me,” Lewis said. “We wore them for the first game I was back against Gardner, and they decided they were going to keep (wearing them) for the rest of the season.
“It made me smile when I saw them.”
Back at Ayer-Shirley two days later, for a home game against Nantucket on Jan. 24, Lewis sank his first shot: a 3-pointer. His family (and everyone else in attendance) cheered from the bleachers.
“The crowd just erupted,” Ayer-Shirley basketball coach Rick Kilpatrick said. “That was something I’m never going to forget. And I’m sure something him and his family won’t forget, either.”
The Panthers had a historic season that saw them win 20 straight games, play in the Clark Tournament and claim a Mid-Wach D League championship. The hardwood provided an escape for the sharp-shooting Lewis.
“It was very important,” Lewis’ mom said. “He didn’t know what to do. It was just very difficult. It was sad and all that, and I told him it was up to him and his father would’ve wanted him to continue to play.
“Basketball was a really good outlet for Kenny,” she added. “The family, the team bonding. It was a good distraction.”
Watching over him
As Kenny Lewis walked up to the plate for an at-bat during a baseball game against Tahanto on April 4, the song “My Girl” by the Temptations played over the loudspeaker.
I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day
When it’s cold outside, I’ve got the month of May
Over the past five months, a somber cloud hung over the head of the teenager with a sunny disposition. Playing sports, however, cleared up some of the fog surrounding the Ayer-Shirley outfielder with a .300 batting average, 12 RBI and 16 runs scored this spring.
“It’s been a cloudy couple of months,” said Lewis, who plans to study civil engineering at UMass Amherst after he graduates from Ayer-Shirley in two weeks. “Sports has helped. … Baseball was his favorite. Knowing that he’s here with us, it just makes me feel so much better.”
This spring, the Ayer-Shirley baseball team went 10-8 and secured a No. 25 seed in the Division 5 state tournament. Like the Ayer-Shirley basketball team, the Panthers put the initials of Lewis’ dad on the back of their caps to honor their former groundskeeper and father of one of their players.
“His dad was such a loving guy and never negative, just always positive with a bright smile on his face,” said Ayer-Shirley senior Matt Marchand, who grew up playing baseball and basketball with Lewis. “He’d be at every game. It’s basically like he’s there with us, even though he’s not. We keep him in our memory.”
Added Ayer-Shirley athletic director Steve Kendall: “His impact was far beyond just being the head groundskeeper and head custodian. It was well beyond that. He’s obviously missed, not just for the stuff he did, but the type of person he is. To see everyone rally around Kenny is just great.”
When life threw him a curveball, the Ayer-Shirley baseball player kept a bat in his hands and his head in the game. And with the support of his community and sports teams, Kenny Lewis carries his father’s legacy with him on the same field that he kept.
His dad would be proud.
“(He was) one of the best people in the world to be with and he’s just gone now,” Lewis said. “But he’s always going to be there with us, and he’s always going to watch over us.”
—Contact Tommy Cassell at tcassell@telegram.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @tommycassell44.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Ayer-Shirley senior Kenny Lewis honors late father on baseball field
