I watched from the bleachers as Dexter Butler, one of the great baseball Conchs of yesteryear, worked with 9-year-old Caydon Gonzalez at Wickers Field, where the men’s softball league plays its games.
Throwing from behind a protective screen, Butler first tossed a baseball underhand from a short distance to home plate. Then he backed up a bit, though still not to the softball pitcher’s mound, and threw overhand to his young pupil.
Caydon would hit some into the outfield and swing at others without making contact. “He’s like a lot of kids his age,” Butler said later. “He was overswinging, not seeing the ball.”
Though he’s been playing football since he was 3, this is Caydon’s first year learning baseball, said his mother, Cassie Jackson, who, like me, was watching every move on the field. “He’s also tried basketball,” she said. “But he likes baseball.” He is just one of the young baseball players Butler is teaching.
Butler, 36, graduated from Key West High School in 2004 as a prominent shortstop and remains in the Conch record book for most home runs in a game – 2, right behind Michael Balbuena’s 3, and for most grand slams in a season – 2. Dexter also played football for Key West and was captain of both teams.
He went to the University of South Florida for four years, then one more at Nova Southeastern, batting around .270-.280 at both colleges. Butler earned a Big East Player of the Week accolade when he once batted .600 over four games at USF. He was second team All-Big East as a second baseman.
“Before we had our daughter, it was the funnest time of my life, playing in college,” he maintains.
With his degree from USF in hand, Butler came back to Key West and worked at First State Bank, Wells Fargo and Iberiabank. At the same time, he coached a group of 11- to 12-year-old baseball players. “I loved coaching,” he said. Six years ago, when Steve Vinson at Horace O’Bryant School called, Butler became a sixth-grade and American history teacher.
Teaching history comes easily for Dexter. “My father would have me sit in on his history classes at the high school when I was young and he was teaching and I came to like it a lot,” he said. He has also been the boys basketball coach at HOB, where he directed some players, including Jerome Osborne, KT Perkins and Cameron Watson, who later played for the high school.
But his biggest news came when he and his wife, Maria Castillo, became parents to Viviane on Oct. 27, 2021. “She’s starting, almost, to roll over,” said the proud papa of the 4-month old. His wife is a legal assistant for attorney Rick Wunsch.
Butler is still active in sports. “I run with the kids at HOB,” he said. He has played in the adult basketball league. He took up golf a few years ago. “Every time I play, my goal is to break 100,” he said, a goal he doesn’t always reach. “I’ve hit 95,” he said, “but I’m usually around 105.” Dexter had said for years that he wouldn’t play men’s softball, but his older brother Devin talked him into it. And there he is – with the Rodriguez Cigars team.
Dexter’s parents are former Key West basketball and tennis coach Bill Butler and Anita Butler. Both are retired, his mother from being a legal secretary at the state attorney’s office. His father suffered a stroke a few years ago and gets great care from his wife and sons.
