Talk about Chester "Bud" Jordan's life and you're talking about baseball.

The Petrolia native and Bruin resident spent nearly 70 years in the game as a player or coach and will be inducted into the Butler Area Sports Hall of Fame at the organization's annual banquet April 24 at the Butler Days Inn.

Jordan will turn 88 in December and is the oldest of this year's seven inductees.

"This really surprises me," Jordan said. "It's nice to go in with some of the other fellas. It's an honor."

Jordan was 5 years old in 1921 when he picked up a glove for the first time. He helped coach Little League baseball into the 1990s.

At age 12, he played second base for his father's team. He played shortstop for East Brady High School when there was no high school league.

"We played against anybody we could find," Jordan said. "We played the Clarion State Teachers College three times and beat them twice."

While a sophomore at East Brady, Jordan played center field for an adult team in Rimersburg. He later played third base for East Butler in the Butler County League.

"I was a shortstop all through high school, but the coach at East Butler needed a third baseman," Jordan said. "I never cared what position I played. I just wanted to play."

Jordan was the first East Brady man drafted for World War II. He was stationed in Washington, D.C., for two years, then went overseas as an engineer shortly after the war ended.

The military had no baseball team, but Jordan was the captain and a shortstop-third baseman for the Battery H softball team that won the Army and Navy Leagues.

Jordan played for Chicora in the Butler County League from 1947-49, then played and managed for Fairview from 1950-56.

For most of the teams he played for, Jordan hit .350 and batted in the leadoff position. He stopped playing baseball in 1956 to teach his son, Bob, how to play the game.

"If anybody was going to teach my boy how to play baseball, I figured it might as well be me," Jordan said.

Jordan was an assistant coach for Bruin's team in the Petroleum Valley League while his son played. His team won the championship in every year but one.

Jordan helped to form teams that played in the Butler County Pony League and helped to form the Petrolia Valley Pony League.

"Dad helped form a local Pony League because kids had to travel into Butler to play all the time," Bob Jordan said. "He was instrumental in getting our local league started."

Jordan coached his son's Pony League team in Chicora and his teams won the championship six of seven years.

He helped coach his son's American Legion team in the late 1960', stopped coaching in the '70s, only to return in 1985.

"He's influenced so many kids," Bob Jordan said. "He coached my wife's nephew in Little League and he's only 18. He's covered a lot of generations."

Jordan said the biggest difference he's noticed in baseball is that "the pitching has gotten a lot better."

"He coached kids with varying degrees of talent," Jordan's son said. "He'd tell everybody to just do the best you can do, because that's all anybody can ever expect from you. I suppose that's the way it is in life, too."