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                               Dick Marino [d. 2012]

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Marino ran popular Bay View tavern He gave up sports for family business dwalker@journalsentinel.com

Peter Marino was a colorful and talented man who ran a well-known tavern and restaurant in Bay View with his father, also named Peter. The son was known as Dick — his middle name was Richard — so family, patrons and others could differentiate between the two. Dick Marino died Dec. 10 of natural causes. He was 80.       Dick and his father ran Marino’s Sportsman’s Tap, 2491 S. Superior St. Marino’s was a Bay View institution that for decades attracted locals and dock workers for lunch during the week and dinners on Friday and Saturday nights.The food it served mimicked the Italian food served in the Le Marche region of Italy. Italy is shaped like a boot, and the region where the Marinos traced their ancestry is located in the calf area of the boot.      “Sometimes they would feed as many as 200 workers at lunch,” recalled Marino’s daughter Dani Graf. “They would serve themselves and pay later. “And our Saturday night spaghetti dinners were famous.”      According to Graf, Marino’s wife, Marion, did the cooking and Marino did  the talking and the storytelling. “She made all of the food for Saturday and he  put on a show every day,” Graf said.      Marino graduated from Bay View High School in 1950. He was an accomplished athlete in virtually every sport he played, but he excelled on the baseball diamond, mostly as a second baseman. After he graduated, he attended Michigan State University to play baseball but later transferred to the University of Wisconsin. His family says he could have played professionally.      His father wasn’t impressed with any of that. “He told my dad, ‘Get a real  job,’ ” Graf said.      And so Marino came home in 1953 to work in the family business. Together, father and son ran the tavern and restaurant until 1976, when Dick Marino took over. The Marino family sold the business in 2000. It is now known as the Palomino.      Throughout his life, according to Graf, her father never stood still. There was always something to do, or some sport to play. She said he had skills for math and numbers that no one could match. At least in sports, Graf said, her father always found the games easy to play. On April 22, 1958, she said, her father bowled a 300 game and shot 68 at Grant Park’s golf course. He was a hunter and a fisherman and a billiards player few could defeat. He played softball well into adulthood and was a member of the famed Copper Hearth teams. One year Marino’s team won a national softball championship.      Graf said Marino was a good man to his wife and children. He was married to Marion for 58 years. In 1985, Marino went on trial on allegations of failing to file federal income taxes. A federal court jury found him guilty, and Federal Judge Terence T. Evans set aside one of the counts, fined Marino $10,000 and put him on three years’ probation.      Graf said her father didn’t let the case bother him.      “It didn’t ruin our lives and it didn’t ruin his,” she said. “He was a fun person.”      She added, “He wasn’t a saint, and he wasn’t a sinner.”      Because he was a sportsman at heart, it’s important to note what the Marino family included in the death notice of their father. “Remember Dick when you are participating in your next outdoor event or athletic competition.”      Besides his wife and daughter, survivors include two other daughters, Jacki and Patti; two sons, Jim and Rick; 11 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.