Flashback 1981: 3 Days Finally Yields 4 Baseball Champions
By
Ron Pesch
MHSAA historian
April 30, 2021
The nursery rhyme “Rain, Rain Go Away” has often served as unofficial anthem for the MHSAA’s baseball tournament, first held in the spring of 1971.
A decade after the start, downpours again turned a planned Saturday-sprint-to-the-finish into a three-day-marathon that finally wrapped up on Tuesday, June 16, 1981.
In the end, the 10th MHSAA Boys Baseball Tournament did feature a few ‘firsts.’ The finish of the season marked the first year that championship games for each of the Association’s four classes were scheduled for play at a single site. Previous championship action saw each class play its title game in a different city across the state.
Alumni Field at Central Michigan University served as host. Home of the Chippewas, the site served as an impressive backdrop, as the stadium had been recently renovated thanks to fundraising work by Mount Pleasant insurance businessman Jack Weisenburger, who had played five years of professional baseball in the Boston Braves organization, and nationally-known beloved sportscaster Dick Enberg, a CMU alumnus.
CLASS A
Roger Horrie’s 10th-inning two-out hit up the alley in left center scored freshman pinch runner Deron White from third base, giving Harper Woods Bishop Gallagher a 7-6 walk-off victory over Flint Carman.
The smash, coming off Jeff Hamilton’s two-ball, two-strike pitch, was welcome relief to Lancers coach Jim Bresciami, whose team had stranded 17 runners on base prior to the game winner. Gallagher had loaded the bases in both the seventh and ninth innings, but was unable to score.
“Roger is our best bunter,” Bresciami told Detroit Free Press sportswriter Mick McCabe, “but we already had a man thrown out at the plate on a bunt so we just let him swing away, and the good Lord let it drop.” Horrie had walked three times and bunted twice earlier in the game.
The contest, twice postponed because of storms, was finally played on Tuesday.
Hamilton (who later played for the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1986-91) starred for Carman, notching three RBI on a triple in the top of the fifth inning to give Carman a 5-3 lead. Kirk White’s two-run homer for Gallagher in the bottom of the inning tied the game at five each. Darrin Lum doubled in the sixth for Carman, then scored on a single by Pat Richard to make it 6-5 before Don Rowland (later a member of University of Miami’s 1982 and 1985 NCAA championship baseball teams and a draft pick of the Detroit Tigers) tripled then scored following a sacrifice bunt by Andy Krause, again knotting the score.
With the win, Gallagher became Michigan’s first Class A team to repeat as champion, while Bresciami became the state’s first coach in Class A to win two titles.
Bresciami compiled a 545-149 record over 21 seasons at the school before retiring following the 1985 season. His teams earned three runner-up finishes (B-1974, B-1977, A-1984) and three Finals titles (A-1971, A-1981, A-1985). In addition, Gallagher returned to the Class B title game in 1986, falling to Battle Creek Lakeview, 4-3, under coach Bob Hadacz, a four-year assistant to Bresciami. Gallagher then won another crown in Class B in 1989, coached by Thomas Trompics.
CLASS B
On Monday, Bay City All Saints required only five innings to grab its second baseball title, trouncing Tecumseh 7-1. The Cougars had previously won the 1978 crown in Class C.
Tecumseh scored first, loading the bases in the top of the second inning and pushing a run across on Rex Robinson’s one-out single to grab a 1-0 lead. But it was all All Saints to follow. The Cougars responded in the bottom of the inning with an RBI single by Mark Berent, then added two more with Mike McIlhargey’s 385-foot home run shot to bump the score to 3-1. Catcher G.J. Zanotti added a solo homer in the third inning, then All Saints scored twice more in the fourth and again in the fifth. The game was called under MHSAA rules after three downpours made the field unplayable. Dave Laprairie went the distance for the win.
“For many on the team,” noted the Bay City Times years later, “their biggest game was not the state final win over Tecumseh. … To them, the real highlight was their semifinal against Mount Pleasant that was played in Bay City's Veterans Park before a crowd of nearly 3,000 people.” Mount Pleasant had finished as runner-up in Class B a year previous, and took All Saints – the top-ranked team in the Michigan High School Baseball Coaches Association (MHSBCA) regular-season final poll – to extra innings before surrendering, 10-7.
Following the postseason, All Saints shortstop Keith Miller was named to the MHSBCA Class B first-team all-state squad. (Miller would later play college baseball at Oral Roberts University, then carve out a nine-year career in the Major Leagues playing five seasons with the New York Mets and four with the Kansas City Royals.)
CLASS C
Allen Park Cabrini grabbed a 9-8 win over Buchanan in a thriller. It was the second title in three years for the Monarchs and coach Donald Oboza.
Suspended in the third inning on Saturday with Cabrini leading 1-0, the game was resumed Monday. Cabrini added four more runs in the inning for a quick 5-0 lead. Buchanan scored twice in the bottom of the third, and then tied the contest at 5-5 in fourth, highlighted by a John Ehlert home run.
The Monarchs jumped out to a 9-5 lead before storms delayed play for another hour and 35 minutes entering the seventh inning. When the game resumed, Buchanan rallied for three runs in dramatic fashion to pull within one.
“With (Buchanan) runners at first and second and no one out,” wrote Jack Walkden in the St. Joseph Herald-Palladium, “the Bucks John Ehlert hit a long drive up the alley in right-centerfield. But (Cabrini centerfielder John) Stanko went far to his left to haul down the drive over his shoulder. The play proved even more important when two of the next three Buchanan batters collected hits. If Ehlert’s drive had gotten through, Buchanan probably would have at least tied the game.”
“That guy made a heckuva play on Ehlert’s ball,” said Buchanan coach Bob Storm. “That was the ballgame.”
Cabrini’s senior righthander Tony DeMarti, “who several times left his shortstop position to pitch” due to the MHSAA’s rule that forbid one hurler from pitching more than a combined 30 outs over 10 innings in the Semifinals and Final, was “brought … back to the mound (in the seventh),” according to McCabe, “where he eventually ended the threat …”
Cabrini first baseman Mike McKelvey finished with a single and a double, driving in three runs. Stanko notched a single and a double, scored twice and added an RBI on the day for the Monarchs. DeMarti, who had scored the eventual game winner, also earned the victory in relief – his eighth win in 12 decisions on the year.
Cabrini finished with a 29-11 mark. Buchanan’s 27-5 record was the school’s best to date.
CLASS D
In the only game to finish as scheduled at CMU, Reading’s Randy Spangler (13-1) pitched a complete game, scattering five hits as the Rangers downed Mesick, 1-0.
The run came in the top of the first inning as catcher Mike Shoemaker walked, moved to second on a sacrifice by Jon Keger, and then scored on an error when Spangler’s grounder to deep short was thrown away.
Paul Ruskowski walked and stole second for Mesick in the bottom of the seventh inning, but was left on base. Coach Jack Kerspilo’s Rangers ended the year with a 26-3 record. Starter Chris McNitt took the loss for Mesick, which finished the season at 23-4.
Ron Pesch has taken an active role in researching the history of MHSAA events since 1985 and began writing for MHSAA Finals programs in 1986, adding additional features and "flashbacks" in 1992. He inherited the title of MHSAA historian from the late Dick Kishpaugh following the 1993-94 school year, and resides in Muskegon. Contact him at [email protected] with ideas for historical articles.
PHOTOS: (Top) Harper Woods Bishop Gallagher claimed the Class A baseball title in 1981, its second championship in the sport. (2) Future Dodgers infielder Jeff Hamilton waits on a pitch for Flint Carman in Class A. (3) John Stanko takes a cut for Allen Park Cabrini in the Class C title game. (4) Buchanan celebrates a homer by John Ehlert. (Photos collected by Ron Pesch.)
Decades Later, Wernette's Wondrous 2003 Remains Nearly Unchallenged
By
Steve Vedder
Special for MHSAA.com
April 24, 2023
Nate Wernette knew his final spring at Morley Stanwood had been special, but he had no idea just how historic it was until a strange visitor showed up at the family home near Stanwood just weeks after the baseball season ended.
The man, completely unknown to the family, produced a number of framed newspaper clippings and several pages of well-documented statistical research on Wernette's recently completed senior season at Morley Stanwood. The numbers showed that Wernette, a pitcher whose skill set fell somewhere between being a hard thrower and crafty left-hander, had accomplished even more than suspected at first glance.
In fact, the research showed that Wernette's senior year arguably was the single greatest pitching season in the history of Michigan high school baseball.
"We never had any idea," said Wernette on the eve of the 20th anniversary of that historic season in 2003.
Wernette was vaguely aware that his 20 pitching wins had broken the state record of 19 wins set by Brandon LaTour of Blissfield in 1992. The pair remain among only four pitchers in state history with at least 17 wins in a single season.
But as the man's research pointed out, that feat was just the tip of the iceberg. The 20 wins pushed Wernette's career total to 56, a state record that remains seven better than Homer's Josh Collmenter's eventual total of 49 from 2001-04. What Wernette also didn't realize was his 272 season strikeouts smashed the previous record of 215 by Southgate Aquinas’ Dan Horvath from 1998 and would outlast a challenge of 223 by Collmenter in 2004, and that Wernette’s average of 15.2 strikeouts per game was at that time second (and now fourth) all-time in state history. Wernette finished his career with 583 whiffs, second in state history.
He also tossed four no-hitters that season, second on the all-time list. Three of those no-hitters, in fact, came in consecutive dominant starts from May 6-10.
While Wernette was pitching himself into the Michigan high school record book, National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) research shows where Wernette's numbers stand nationally. It turns out that only 10 pitchers in the country's history have won more than 20 games in a season. The all-time mark is 25 by Randolph Slaters of Mooreville High School in Missouri in 1985. Wernette’s 272 strikeouts is fourth all-time, with Salters also holding that record at 336. The 56 career wins is sixth all-time, with Terry Heiderscheit of Lansing Kee High School in Iowa holding the record of 69 from 1975-78.
Wernette admits it's probably best that he was unaware of the records at the time. His focus was on being the only senior on a young 10-player Morley Stanwood team that many suspected would be lucky to break .500 in 2003. But behind Wernette's sensational season, Morley Stanwood finished 41-3, with Wernette suffering his only defeat 3-1 to Blissfield in the Division 3 championship game.
"I was kind of glad I didn't know. Who knows what would have been in the back of my mind if I knew I was that close (to the records)," he said. "I never thought that much about it. I didn't know about the strikeout record, and I never looked at my (won-loss) record until someone mentioned that I was close to 50 and that I could break the state record."
Wernette remembers starting about 17 games that season as at least a couple of the wins came in relief. The success also didn't exactly come out of the blue as Wernette went 7-5 as a promising freshman, then put together 14-3 and 15-4 seasons as a sophomore and junior, respectively. The 15 wins remain tied for 10th all-time in state history.
Wernette's catcher his final season was sophomore Drew Thompson, who remembers Wernette as having a fastball that touched 90 mph at best. He never threw a curveball until making the high school team and really didn't master it until his last season and a half for Morley Stanwood. But Wernette, an all-conference football linebacker, had a relentless competitive streak, Thompson recalled.
"There was his velocity and the way he threw balls that tailed away from batters," Thompson said. "A lot of high school hitters never saw balls that would move away like that. But he was a gamer who just wanted the ball in his hand. If he got into trouble, he wanted a strikeout and he had the stuff to do it.
"Everything fit together for him that year. He had confidence we would win whether we were down 1-0 or 2-1 or we were up. I remember him always being relaxed."
Wernette agrees everything indeed did fall into place that season. One of four Mohawks pitchers who could throw at least 80 mph, Wernette's place in the rotation included starting twice during the week while occasionally relieving in a weekend tournament. By the time the team was around 16 games into the season, Wernette realized something special was happening. The team played well in the usually strong Big Rapids Tournament, where the Mohawks swept Remus Chippewa Hills and Big Rapids. Morley Stanwood split a key doubleheader with Howard City Tri County, and suddenly Wernette and a painfully young Morley Stanwood club that virtually had returned little else than its No.1 pitcher was catching fire.
Wernette's 20th win came in a 3-2 decision over Rudyard in a Quarterfinal at Gaylord. Because rain on Tuesday had pushed the game back a day to Wednesday, Wernette was unable to start the team's Semifinal on Friday. But even without Wernette, the team's No. 3 hitter and first baseman when he wasn't on the mound, Morley Stanwood beat a 35-4 Goodrich team 4-3 in the Semifinal, paving the way for Wernette to pitch the Final. But Morley Stanwood made a couple key errors in the title game, and Blissfield pitcher Jake Recker – who had only a modest 4-4 record heading into the day – was excellent in a 3-1 win. The championship was part of three Finals titles over four years for Blissfield.
Wernette said his reflections on his heavy pitching load that season haven't changed in 20 years. He would take the ball whenever coach Ron Ford asked him.
"I never told him I couldn't pitch," Wernette said. "My arm never bothered me. I'd ice it after a game, and I never had an arm issue. Looking back now I know I threw more than a lot of high school pitchers, but I was all for it. I wanted the ball every chance I could get it."
While Wernette never suffered a sore arm during four years in high school, his pitching career ended five months after graduation. After attending a Detroit Tigers tryout in Grand Rapids, Wernette was advised he needed a year in college. So he shuffled off to Muskegon Community College, where during the opening weeks of fall ball, Wernette hurt his shoulder during a long toss exercise. While medical evaluations have made great strides in the last 20 years, Wernette said the numbness he felt probably meant a torn rotator cuff. He never tried pitching again.
"I probably should have stuck with it, and that's the biggest thing with me because baseball was so special," he said. "I took the game seriously, but the rest of it – like school – I wish I would have put more into it.
Wernette's spark for pitching is reflected in his two young daughters, Brooklynn, 11, and Jaycee, 8. Both are travel softball pitchers. Wernette said the family has a pitching machine set up to hone their talent.
"They're definitely into it," he said.
The records that Wernette set are probably untouchable as high schools have instituted tight mandates on the number of pitches that can be thrown over a certain number of days. For instance, the top pitchers on last year's 16 MHSAA semifinalists averaged 10.6 starts and 57.5 innings pitched. Wernette threw 125 innings as a senior.
Wernette heartily agrees there should be definite pitch limits on youngsters whose arms are not fully developed.
"I definitely see it as a good thing," he said. "Back then you never heard much about Tommy John surgeries of rotator cuffs. I never learned about that stuff until after school. I never had any concerns; I just wanted the ball every chance I could get it."
As for Wernette's remarkable season, he spends little time thinking about the achievements unless someone mentions them. But it's hardly comparable to the Bruce Springsteen "Glory Days" song of yesterday's greatness.
"Somebody will bring it up, and I have a lot of good memories. But I wish I would have done some things differently like paying more attention to school and applying myself. There was too much of just trying to get by," he said.
"But it was an honor to accomplish what I did. I'll always think that."
PHOTOS (Top) Morley Stanwood’s Nate Wernette makes his move toward the plate during the 2003 Division 3 Final against Blissfield. (Middle) Wernette’s record-setting win made the statewide news wire, appearing in various newspapers including as this clip in the St. Joseph Herald-Palladium.