Charles “Chuck” Savage, long-time baseball enthusiast, former Cayuga County legislator and active member of the Democratic Party, died at 76 on Friday.

He was the fellow you could sit down with and swap baseball stories or easily talk state and local politics with. He was a person who leaves a mighty legacy.

Most of us will remember him as part of that quartet of local baseball activists who, in the early 1990s, with the late Leo Pinckney, Dr. Thomas Stapleton and Vincent Klein, were responsible for getting Auburn to take up the cause of not only rebuilding Falcon Park, but also making sure that minor league baseball stayed in Auburn. At a time when the city could have dumped the franchise for a small profit, it lobbied local officials and Albany to make retaining baseball a priority.

Savage may have played an even more important role during the process, when he was able to enlist the services of his son-in-law, Steve Weingarten, a well-known and connected lobbyist in Albany to take up the cause. By the time the process of putting financing in place was done, Albany had decided to foot roughly half of the cost of new stadiums across the Empire State to meet Major League Baseball's new standards.

But while baseball was his passion, it was politics that was in his blood. He married Margaret “Peggy” Boyle, the daughter of one of Auburn's great mayors. He would serve on the Cayuga County Legislature for 22 years and hold the office with dignity and class. He represented the residents on the city's east side well, defending city interests and acting with a courtesy long absent in local politics.

His county service made him an easy choice by local Democrats for city clerk in 1995, which saw unanimous support, including two Republican city council members (for the record I was one of those Republicans) for his appointment. His genial manner at city hall made him a pleasure to work with. His position as city clerk did not remove him from active politics - he would represent the local party on its state committee for years, but never was a partisan at city hall.

Yet, all of that may not be Savage's greatest legacy. If anything, it is the family he leaves behind. His daughter Maureen and her husband, Jack Canty, and their children live in the area and were very close. And passing down that political bloodline, his other daughter, Susan, has chaired the Schenectady County Legislature for years. Among the two of them, they provided Chuck and Peggy Savage with a dozen grandchildren, who could often be found each summer sitting just behind the opposition dugout at Falcon Park with their grandfather watching his favorite pastime.

Cosentino is a former mayor of Auburn and can be contacted at cozguytho@aol.com