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While
seemingly not as popular as some of the other boys
sports like football and basketball, baseball has been
around Ohio’s high schools almost from the time that the
game was invented by Abner Doubleday. The problem is
not that the sport is unpopular, far from it, but other
factors come into play that often detract from what we
might refer to as high school baseball’s “recognition
factor.” For instance, although the springtime brings
us nice warm weather after the long, cold, snowy Ohio
winter, it also brings something else – April showers.
Between the April and May rains, and the occasional late
winter snow that can sometimes extend almost to Easter,
especially in the northern half of the state, baseball
often gets the short end of the weather stick. Games
can get cancelled and rescheduled so often that we are
sometimes lucky if the teams and their coaches know when
to show up. This hampers the ability of the local
newspapers to cover the games, and if the results do not
get into the paper, well, as the saying goes, out of
sight, out of mind.
There
is another problem for baseball, and for all of the
other spring sports, at the schools themselves.
Yearbooks, if they are to be available before
graduation, must go to press by early May. When a
sport’s season extends to the very end of the school
year, like baseball’s does, not much can be put into the
yearbook about the team other than a team photo and
perhaps a small paragraph about the team’s hopes for the
season, or, if the team is real lucky, a recap of the
previous year’s results. Fortunately, this particular
problem seems to be on the decline of late, as more and
more schools are now issuing their yearbooks at the
beginning of the next school year, thus allowing for
more complete coverage of all school activities for the
entire school year.
Finally, with the games played during daylight hours,
and predominantly on week days, it is difficult for
parents and fans to attend them.
Thankfully, local newspaper coverage of high school
baseball appears to be on the upswing. As recently as
20 years ago, if you wanted to get information about
high school baseball in the local newspaper you were
lucky to get a score, much less a box score or a small
article. All that seems to be changing, at least in
Ohio. Coverage of not only baseball, but all high
school sports, is definitely much better now than in
years past. The big games are getting more “ink,” and
outstanding accomplishments and players are being
recognized. Newspapers, such as the Cleveland Plain
Dealer, have even come up with weekly high school
sports sections, where the sports of the season, local
standings, etc. are featured throughout the school year.
In
spite of all of the above listed obstacles, baseball in
Ohio’s high schools has been thriving for generations.
The state tournament is a prime example, with this
year’s championship marking the 80th edition
of the State Baseball Tournament. From the beginning in
1928, through 1970, all schools were divided into two
categories. From 1928-1956 it was Class A for the
bigger schools and Class B for the smaller ones. These
classifications were changed to Class AA and Class A,
respectively, from 1957-1970. From 1971-1990 there were
three classes, AAA-AA-A, and from 1991 to the present
they were renamed and a fourth added, Division
I-II-III-IV.
All of
the tournaments have had their own brand of excitement,
and that first one back in 1928 was no exception. In
the Class A big school category, Columbus Aquinas made
it to the finals on the basis of a pair of shutouts in
the quarter-final and semi-final rounds.
In the
championship game against Athens High School, things
would get a bit more “interesting,” with the bulk of the
scoring coming in the final two innings. Entering the
eighth inning (the championship games were nine inning
affairs until 1932) the game was deadlocked at 1-1.
Athens took a 2-1 lead in the top of the eighth, but
Aquinas came right back with a pair of runs in the
bottom of the inning. Athens managed to tie the game at
3-3 in the top if the ninth, but Aquinas pushed across
the winning run with just one out in the bottom of the
ninth to take home the first Ohio Class A baseball
championship. Although Aquinas would again make it to
the finals in 1936, this would be the school’s one and
only state baseball championship.
The
1928 Class B tournament had even more excitement. In
the quarter-final round, Jack Curby of Newcomerstown
High School tossed a 2-0 no-hitter against Kunkle High
School. Pitching must be the specialty of the Division
IV/Class B tournament, as six of the 11 no-hitters
thrown in state tournament play have come from that
single division.
Unfortunately for Newcomerstown, they were knocked out
of the tournament by Centerville in the semi-finals.
Centerville then played Oxford McGuffey High School in
the Class B championship game. It was a wild affair,
with Centerville coming out on the long end of a 20-9
score. Centerville’s 20 runs and 19 hits are still a
Division IV state tournament record. Oxford McGuffey
aided the Elk’s cause by committing 10 errors in that
game, which may be a record as well, but, fortunately
for the McGuffey nine, that category is not listed among
those in which all-time records are maintained.
Like
Aquinas in Class A, this was Centerville’s only baseball
state championship, in the Elks’ one and only trip to
the tournament. It is truly amazing how often this has
happened over the history of all of the OHSAA state
tournaments, i.e., a school winning its one and only
state title in the very first year of a tournament.
Talk
about parity, in its early days the Class B/small school
Class A state baseball tournament was a living
definition of parity. Over the first 38 years of this
tournament, only four schools managed to win more than
one championship. Reading High School won its first
Class B title in 1942, and became the first school to
win a second championship when the Blue Devils took the
title again in 1944, 16 years after the first tournament
was held. Reading came back in 1946 to take a third
Class B trophy, completing its first perfect season,
19-0, with a 3-0 championship game victory over St.
Henry High School.
The
Blue Devils also won state championships in 1957, 1974
and 1980. Their six state baseball titles are the
second most for any school in Ohio.
Beavercreek High School was another repeat champion in
Class B. The Beavers won their first state championship
in 1941. They then returned to tournament play a decade
later as one of the true baseball powers in Ohio during
the early ‘50’s. In 1951, the Beavers dropped a 3-2
decision to Navarre in the semi-finals. They returned
even stronger the next season. Posting four runs in the
first inning of the state title game, the Beavers (15-1)
made those runs hold up for a 4-0 championship win over
Howland High School. In 1953, Beavercreek became the
first school in the state to win back-to-back baseball
titles when the Beavers handed Ft. Recovery High School
a 6-1 loss in the championship game, closing out a
perfect 21-0 season.
A few
years later, Liberty Union High School surfaced as the
next small school power. Playing in small school Class
A in 1960, Liberty Union went through its entire season
undefeated, 14-0, topping it off with an 8-4 victory
over Convoy Union High School in the state championship
game. The next year it was more of the same for coach
Cliff Rollins’ Lions, another undefeated season, 17-0,
and a second straight state title. Liberty Union is
still the only school in Ohio history to ever put
together back-to-back undefeated championship baseball
seasons.
In 1962
the Lions advanced to the championship game for the
third consecutive year, but this time they dropped a 4-0
decision to Van Wert Lincolnview.
Liberty
Union did not make it to the state tournament in 1963,
but in 1964, now coached by Mark Wylie, the Lions posted
their first 20 win season, against just one defeat, and
took home their third state championship in five years.
Coldwater is another team from a small school division
(Division III) that has had a lot of success in the
state tournament. The Cavaliers have played in the
state tournament 16 times, the second highest total of
any school in the state. They made their first
appearance in1938, but were not able to advance to the
title game until 1977, when they were shut out in the
Class AA finals, 6-0, by Cincinnati Deer Park.
The
Cavaliers “golden era” of baseball took place from 1983
to 1992. During that ten year period Coldwater High
School advanced to the Class AA/Division III state title
game six times, winning five championships. They won
back-to-back titles in 1983 and 1984, posting a stellar
27-0 record in ’84.
The
Cavaliers baseball success is not just confined to the
state tournament, as they are one of the top “baseball
schools” in the whole country. In Ohio they own the two
longest victory streaks on record, winning 44 straight
from 1983-85, and coming back to win 41 in a row in
1987-88. The Cavaliers own 1,061 victories in their 57
years on the diamond, the sixth highest total for any
school in the nation, an average of almost 19 victories
per season. Their winning percentage of .792 is the
best in the state. Perhaps even more amazing is the
fact that they have lost only 278 games in those 57
seasons, the fewest losses by any team in the state that
has played that long, and less than many that have
played considerably fewer seasons.
It was
mentioned earlier in this article that pitching appears
to be a strength among the smaller schools. It may be
hard to prove that either way, but we can give a couple
examples of two of Ohio’s greatest school boy hurlers,
both of whom happen to hail from small schools.
Tom
Engle pitched for Lancaster Fairfield Union High School
from 1987-89. Tom leads the state in three separate
pitching categories and is second or third in three
others. Perhaps Tom’s most incredible accomplishment is
the six no-hitters that he pitched in 1989. How he
accomplished this feat is even more stunning. You see,
Tom Engle pitched his six no-hitters in six consecutive
outings to the mound!
Tom
Engle also leads the state in consecutive shutouts
thrown with seven, and with 50.1 consecutive shutout
innings. He also has 18 career shutouts, which is
second in the state; 20 strikeouts in a game, which is
third in Ohio; and 174 K’s for a single season, which is
also third. Tom’s team never won a state championship,
the Golden Gales losing in the finals in 1986, but that
does not take away from the great career that he had.
As
amazing as some of Tom Engle’s accomplishments are,
there is another pitcher who just might be Ohio’s
all-time best. Pitching for Northwestern High School of
West Salem from 1956-1959, Dean Chance, future American
League Cy Young Award winner (by the way, Cy Young was
also an Ohioan), put up some remarkable numbers.
While
he is best known to most of us for his accomplishments
in baseball, Dean Chance was also quite a basketball
player at Northwestern High School. In 1958, he led
Northwestern to the Class A state basketball
championship. In his senior year he was named to the
first team AP and UPI All-Ohio squads.
Unfortunately, the complete historical record of
Chance’s baseball accomplishments is somewhat lacking,
but what we do know is truly amazing. In the spring of
1958, Dean Chance led the Huskies’ baseball team to its
first appearance in the Class A state baseball
tournament. They advanced as far as the semi-final
game, where the team from Gnadenhutten High School
handed the Huskies a 3-1 defeat. Dean Chance was on the
mound that day, and that loss would prove to be the only
one suffered by Chance in 53 decisions as a high school
hurler.
The
next season Chance and the Huskies would finish what
they had started the year before, and Chance’s
performance in the 1959 state tournament would be a true
reflection of what his four year high school baseball
career had been.
On May
22, 1959, in the Class A semi-finals, Chance pitched a
1-0 no-hitter over Cincinnati Country Day, his third
no-hitter of the tournament, to send the Huskies into
the finals. The championship game was played the very
next day, and veteran Northwestern baseball coach Roy
Bates came right back with his best pitcher, Dean
Chance. Chance was not as sharp against Spencerville
High School as he had been against Country Day, allowing
two hits in this game. However, his team provided
plenty of offense en route to a 7-0 championship game
victory.
Dean
Chance’s record on the mound is truly astounding. That
championship game victory was Dean Chance’s 52nd
for the Huskies, against just one defeat. His 52 career
wins are tops in the state. The record for consecutive
victories by a pitcher in Ohio is listed at 25.
However, Chance’s lone defeat came in his 33rd
decision, which would give him 32 consecutive
victories. In his senior year of 1959 Dean Chance went
20-0, becoming the only Ohio high school hurler to win
20 games in a single season.
Chance
also hurled an incredible17 no-hitters during his high
school days, but here again the official record is
lacking. He is not listed among the all-time leaders in
Ohio in this category, where his 17 career no-hitters
are the second most in the nation. Dean Chance also
pitched eight no-hitters in each of two seasons, 1958
and 1959. Eight no-hitters is also an Ohio record for a
single season, as well as again being second highest in
the country. Unfortunately, it is not known how many of
these no-hitters were perfect games.
Had the
statistics been available, Chance would no doubt have
been at or near the top in several other categories as
well. It is said that he averaged almost two strike
outs per inning, and in many games recorded all of his
outs via the strike out, so his strike out totals would
have certainly been way up the list. With 17
no-hitters, his overall number of shutout victories
would have also been substantial. In his senior year
Dean Chance is said to have allowed only two earned runs
the entire season, so his yearly and career earned run
averages would also have been among the all-time best.
Hopefully, someday the missing information will surface
and Dean Chance will be duly recognized for all of his
accomplishments as one of Ohio’s all-time great high
school pitchers.
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Looking Back at the
OHSAA's Baseball Championships - No. 2
A centennial moment
By Timothy L. Hudak
Sports Heritage Specialty Publications
4814 Broadview Rd.
Cleveland, Ohio 44109
www.SportsHeritagePublications.net
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The
previous article dealt mainly with baseball at the
smaller school categories in the state. In this one we
will in part take a look at how the bigger schools,
those equivalent to the current Division I, have been
doing in the state tournament.
In the
Centennial Moments articles that have appeared this year
in the championship programs of the other sports
sanctioned by the OHSAA, it has been seen how certain
schools or areas of the state seem to dominate a sport
from time to time. For instance, in boys track, the
Greater Cleveland area, and East Tech and Glenville high
schools in particular, seem to have had an over
abundance of the state’s track talent. A similar
situation occurs in boys baseball at the big school
level.
There
have thus far been 79 state baseball tournaments, and
the city of Cincinnati has been far and away the most
frequent participant. Teams from that city have
participated in the state tournament, i.e., the
semi-final and final rounds, 52 times, or roughly 66% of
the time. Of those 52 tournament appearances, these
schools have advanced to the championship game on 40
occasions, coming away with 33 state titles.
(Cincinnati schools from smaller divisions have won an
additional nine state championships.) Although, as we
shall see, one school has claimed the lion’s share of
these appearances, no less than 14 schools from the
Queen City have participated in the big school baseball
tournament.
The
Cincinnati schools had perhaps their greatest run of
success from 1941-1968. During those 28 seasons there
were only five times when one of the city’s schools
failed to qualify for the big school tournament,
advancing to the championship game 18 times, winning 15
state titles. During this period the city enjoyed
something of a “golden era” of baseball success during
the years 1948 to 1960, when five different schools won
11 of the 13 championships that were being played for.
(In 1956 the city made a clean sweep of the state
baseball championships, as Elder took home the Class A
trophy, and Greenhills grabbed the Class B hardware.)
If one
school can be called Ohio’s “baseball school,” that
school is Cincinnati’s Elder High School. Not only have
the Panthers played in more state tournaments (18), and
won more state championships (12) than any other school
in the state, they have also, as will be shown below,
won more baseball games than any other high school in
the country.
Elder
did not play in its first state tournament until 1943.
That year the Panthers used a four run second inning to
defeat Springfield, 4-0, to claim their first state
championship. The Panthers’ greatest era of success
came from 1952 to 1961. During those 10 seasons Elder
qualified for the tournament eight times, winning six
championships, including a state record three in a row
in 1958-1959-1960.
The
Panthers have won at least one state baseball
championship in every decade since the 1940’s, something
that is looked upon by the Elder faithful as the
school’s greatest sports tradition. Sometimes it has
not been easy to keep that tradition alive. During the
1990’s the Panthers qualified for the tournament in
1996, only to get sent packing in the semi-finals. By
the time the 1999 season rolled around, the team had
still not won a state title during the decade to keep
its title tradition alive.
The
Panthers qualified for the tournament that year with a
good, but not spectacular, record of 25-7. In the
semi-finals they out slugged Toledo St. Francis, 12-5,
to advance to the championship game. In that game the
Panthers would be facing an outstanding team from
Cuyahoga Falls, 30-1, and ranked #20 in the country.
Elder squandered a pair of one-run leads early in the
game, but in the top of the seventh Jeff Lammers, a .398
hitter for the season, stroked a two-run single to give
Elder a 4-2 lead. Dan Bachman came on in relief to
pitch the bottom of the seventh and retired the side in
order, including a strikeout for the final out, to give
the Panthers their 11th state title, but more
importantly, keeping their championship streak alive.
They would go on to add a 12th title in 2005,
so the tradition continues.
Pitching has always been a big part of baseball. It has
already been mentioned about the great success that Dean
Chance had in the 1959 state tournament. However, nine
years later one pitcher from the big school ranks topped
even that spectacular performance.
The
pitcher was Buddy Schultz from East Cleveland’s Shaw
High School. Shaw was scheduled to play Marion Franklin
High School of Columbus in the semi-finals on Friday,
May 25. However, five days of almost continuous rain
put off the game until the following Wednesday, May 30.
It was then decided by the tournament manager to play
both semi-final games, and the championship game, all on
the same day, rather than take a chance on getting hit
by more rain later in the week. Schultz, a lefty,
pitched the first game of the day for the Cardinals and
easily disposed of Marion Franklin, 6-0, with a nifty
three hitter.
Thirty
minutes after the end of the second semi-final game, won
by Toledo Rodgers High School, it was time to play for
the state championship. Shaw coach John Hicks decided
to come right back with his ace, Buddy Schultz.
The
game was scoreless through the first five innings. Shaw
pushed across a run in the top of the sixth to take a
1-0 lead. Schultz struck out the side in the bottom of
the sixth, and started the bottom of the seventh with
another K.
Buddy
got two quick strikes on the next batter, but when he
threw that second strike he grabbed his arm in pain,
having suffered a cramp. Coach Hicks came out to
massage the arm, but Schultz threw four consecutive
balls to walk the batter. After he started off the next
hitter with three more balls, coach Hicks again came out
to massage his arm. Schultz then got the batter to
bounce the next pitch right back to him. He fielded the
ball and threw to second base to start a game ending
double play.
In that
single memorable day Buddy Schultz had pitched two
complete game victories (14 innings), both shutouts,
allowing just five hits, three walks and striking out
27. Only one runner had advanced past first base.
Today,
Schultz would not be allowed to duplicate his
performance of 1968. A rule, called by some “The Buddy
Schultz Rule,” prohibits a high school pitcher from
throwing more than 10 innings in three days. Schultz
went on to pitch four years for Miami University, where
in 1971 he set the NCAA record of 26 strikeouts in a
nine-inning game. He also pitched for five years in the
major leagues with the Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis
Cardinals.
For
those of us who like to follow high school baseball at
the national level, it is sometimes frustrating when we
cannot find our Ohio teams represented among the
nation’s top schools. Many will tell you that this is
because those schools that tend to dominate the national
rankings come from areas of the country, like the south,
southwest and southern California, where the weather is
more attuned to the sport, allowing the teams to play
more games in better game conditions.
I buy
that argument to a certain extent, but by the same
token, feel that good high school baseball players and
teams are good no matter where they hail from, or how
many games per year they play. One need look no further
than the National High School Sports Record Book to see
how that “warm weather” argument is sometimes less than
adequate, or accurate. In the very first category
listed in the baseball section, Most Wins All-Time,
seven schools are listed. Contrary to that “warm
weather” theory, four of those top seven are from right
here in the Buckeye State!!
Cincinnati Elder High School, with 1,258 victories, is
the winningest baseball high school in the nation.
Number Four on the national list is the Big Red of
Steubenville, with 1,121 wins, followed by #5 Oregon
Clay High School, 1,081 victories, and #6 Coldwater and
its 1,061 triumphs. Throwing even more cold water (no
pun intended) on the warm weather theory, the number
three and seven schools are both from New Jersey. Only
the second ranked school, Tucson (Az.) High School,
comes from one of the warm weather areas.
However, these prejudices are hard to overcome and,
unfortunately, those who put out the national rankings
will probably not be reading this article. Nonetheless,
Ohio high schools do on occasion manage to crack the
national Top 25 lists. The most visible of these is the
one put out by USA Today. In the nine Top 25
baseball lists that USA Today has put out since
1997 (there was no listing in 2000), Ohio teams have
managed to finish in the final Top 25 seven times. The
state’s best showing came in 1997, when Hamilton High
School finished at #2, with Toledo Start High School
coming in at #24. In 1991, when Fairfield High School
took the Division I state championship, head coach Gary
Yeats was named USA Today’s national “Coach of
the Year”.
Individual accomplishments are just that, and there will
always be someone who will come along to do something
just a little better than the last guy. Nevertheless,
Ohio’s baseball players and coaches have done themselves
proud when compared to those around the nation. We
would like to list some of their accomplishments for you
now.
When it
comes to swinging the bat, few can top Mike Breyman, who
played for Seneca Attica East from 1997-2000. Mike’s
career batting average of .604 is third best in the
nation, while his single season mark of .810 in 2000 is
the all-time top average for one season. It is hard to
see how Dean Sandwich did not make the all-time batting
average list when you read about his remarkable
accomplishment. Playing for Woodmore High School in
Elmore, Ohio, in 1983 and 1984, Dean set a national
record when he hit safely in 30 consecutive at bats.
When it
is time to “go yard,” Ohio’s sluggers seldom takes a
back seat to others. In 1976, Ken Lisko, playing for
Youngstown Cardinal Mooney, tied the national record
with five home runs in a single game. Twenty years
later, Jason Thompson of Sylvania Southview came close
to that record when he cracked four round trippers in a
single game.
Mark
Franklin of Brookfield High School tied several records
in his biggest game back in 1982. On April 16 of that
year, in the sixth inning of the game, Mark hit home
runs in consecutive at bats, both grand slams,
accounting for eight RBIs. The homers in an inning are
tied for #2 all-time, as are the RBIs in an inning, but
the two grand slams in consecutive at bats are #1.
During the final days of the 1996 season, and the early
days of 1997, Jon Coffman of Warren High School in
Vincent, Ohio, tied the national record when he hit home
runs in nine consecutive games.
Having
a keen eye at the plate is certainly an asset, and no
team in Ohio history has had a better eye for hitting
the ball in a single game than did Toledo St. Francis in
1983. That year, the Knights connected for no less than
40 hits in a single game, the fourth highest total in
the country.
Once
you get on base, it is always helpful to your team if
you can steal a base or two, and no one in Ohio high
school baseball history has ever been better at that
than Matt Figgie of Gilmour Academy in Gates Mills, just
east of Cleveland. Matt is Ohio’s all-time best base
stealer with 170 (9th in the nation) in a
career that went from 1982-1984. What makes this record
even more remarkable is that these were consecutive
thefts (#2 in the nation) – Matt was apparently never
thrown out while trying to steal a base.
Defense
starts with pitching. The accomplishments of Tom Engle
and Dean Chance have already been mentioned, and some of
their records have been good enough to make the national
record book. Dean Chance’s 18 career no-hitters is
second all-time, while Tom Engle’s six consecutive
no-no’s is tops in the country, and the third highest
total for a season.. Dave Roebuck of Bryan High School
recorded 10 shutouts during the 1959 season, the fourth
highest total nationally. Chris Jimenez, playing for
Defiance High School, went through the entire 1989
season without allowing a single earned run, making him
one of about two dozen pitchers nationally who have
accomplished that feat.
As in
other sports, Ohio has produced some very fine baseball
coaches over the years. Leading the list of those with
impressive win totals is Don Thorpe, who has led the
team from Hebron Lakewood High School to 778 victories
from 1973-2006. Others with impressive victory totals
to their credit are Tim Engleka, Centerville, 760 wins
from 1964-2002; Lou Brunswick, Coldwater, 750 wins and a
winning percentage of .819 from 1960-1993; Mike Cameron,
Archbishop Moeller High School, 740 wins from 1969-2006 |
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