![Retired Hastings baseball coach Bernie Oom stands with the record board he’s created that is displayed at the school’s diamond.](/sites/default/files/2024-05/240529_Hastings_2H.png)
Record Board Celebrates Hastings Record-Setters Over 7 Decades on Diamond
By
Steve Vedder
Special for MHSAA.com
May 29, 2024
Bernie Oom had no intention of letting the past slide into history.
So the 88-year-old retired longtime Hastings baseball coach embarked on a meticulous two-year labor-of-love project that recognized the Saxons’ record-breaking ballplayers from the last five decades.
The result is an impressive 63-by-52-inch record board attached to the baseball field's press box located directly behind home plate. The board chronicles a myriad of individual pitching, hitting and team marks derived from Oom's 22 years as coach as well as statistics from his six successors.
Included are records from the top players in Hastings history, including a former Saxon who collected the last hit off hall-of-famer Nolan Ryan, a slugging catcher who was drafted by Seattle and Cincinnati and spent time in the Boston organization, and a Hastings pitcher who owns the oldest mark when he fashioned a 0.35 ERA with just two runs allowed in 40 innings in 1969.
Oom, a member of the Michigan High School Baseball Coaches Association (MHSBCA) Hall of Fame, always kept close track of statistics and records as a coach. Two years ago when his son Wayne began a similar project with the Hastings track program, Oom thought it was time for his former diamond stars to be recognized. While a handful of schools may post scattered records in gymnasiums, it's extremely rare for a school to post records at a baseball field.
"I always liked statistics, and I decided I wanted to keep that kind of stuff up. I'm kind of a stickler for remembering things; details are important to me," said Oom, who compiled a 272-188 record with eight West Central and Twin Valley titles as coach from 1966-87.
"I talked to a lot of my old players, and they thought this was a great idea. But part of the real value is having a ninth grader looking at this and saying, 'I see this, and I want to be up there some day.' I think it will spur things in the program."
In collecting info for the board, Oom went through his 22 seasons of statistics and records, then contacted the six coaches who followed him, including one, Jeff Simpson, who now lives in Arizona. Oom and his son visited local schools such as Grandville and Grand Rapids South Christian for ideas and decided to work with a company called School Pride out of Columbus, Ohio, to produce the board. Oom and the company took two years to get it right, Oom said.
The result are 12 team, 10 offensive and nine individual pitching records as well as a list of the program's all-staters noted on the board.
Point to any records and the still razor-sharp Oom will have a story about the player or the team that produced the mark. Among them is the 15 doubles clubbed by star Dann Howitt in 1982. Howitt, who played 115 major league games across six seasons with six clubs, has a unique claim to fame as the last player to collect a hit of Nolan Ryan on Sept. 22, 1993. A 46-year-old Ryan, who finished with 324 wins and 5,734 strikeouts, walked the bases loaded against the Seattle Mariners, bringing up Howitt, who promptly drove a Ryan fastball over the left field fence. Ryan, a right-hander, tore a right elbow ligament pitching to the next hitter and exited the game, never to pitch again.
Oom remembers Howitt more as a line-drive hitter than a power threat. He actually hit more homers as a major leaguer (five) than he did as a Saxon (one in 120 at-bats over two seasons). The doubles record is the only time Howitt appears on the board, despite batting a combined .392 as a junior and senior.
"Teams would pitch around Dann," Oom said of Howitt, whose other claim to fame is backing up stars Mark McGwire, Tino Martinez and Frank Thomas at the major league level.
Among the other records are indicators of arguably the greatest season ever produced by a Hastings hitter. Nick Williams owns program records for batting average (.591), hits (52), homers (8), RBIs (42) and runs (47) all set in 1991. Williams said among his sharpest memories from that spring is struggling through his only hitless game of the season. He went 0-for-3 in the finale to drop below .600 for the only time all spring. At the time, no Michigan high schooler had batted .600 for one season.
"The ball looked big to me all year," said Williams, who was drafted out of high school by the Mariners, out of Central Michigan by the Reds after his junior season and eventually signed with the Red Sox as a free agent. "I had a pretty good high school career, and I was pretty confident as a senior. I had put a lot of work in hitting on a tee in our garage. Then I would play ball all summer. I improved steadily, and I saw the results that summer."
Former Saxons pitcher Steve Pocernik holds the oldest mark on the board after surrendering a meager two runs in 40 innings for a 0.35 ERA in 1969. After 55 years, Pocernik isn't completely sure but thinks the runs came in one game against St. Johns.
"I didn't throw hard, but I had a curve and I could put the ball where I wanted," he said. "(The record) kind of took me by surprise. I think it's super that Bernie had done what he's done. It's a nice thing for the guys who played for him."
Does keeping the record for five and a half decades come as a surprise? Kind of, Pocernik said.
"Yes and no," he said. "Yes in that it's been a lot of years. No because I don't think pitchers today pitch like we did. There are a lot of guys who've come after me."
Another of the Hastings pitching marks is the tiny total of 12 walks in 57 innings by Mike Hause in 1979. That's an average of just 1.4 walks over seven innings. Like Pocernik, Hause said he didn't throw hard. He mixed a curve with a fastball that rode in on righthanded hitters. Speed aside, Hause explains the low number of walks with having a definitive plan as a pitcher. He remembers focusing on throwing first-pitch strikes and then keeping hitters off-balance with an occasional knuckleball.
"I would work on hitting my spot even in the preseason in the gym," he said. "We put up a strike zone mat with holes in it, and I would try to throw the ball through that spot. I didn't throw as hard as some guys, but I threw strikes."
PHOTOS (Top) Retired Hastings baseball coach Bernie Oom stands with the record board he’s created that is displayed at the school’s diamond. (Middle) A Battle Creek Enquirer story from 1991 discusses Nick Williams' accomplishments. (Photo by Steve Vedder.)
![](/sites/default/files/imported/Photos/190615_D2base_2H.jpg)
St Mary's Completes Championship Climb
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
June 15, 2019
EAST LANSING – By the time the final weekend of the baseball season came around, Orchard Lake St. Mary’s was a juggernaut.
The young but incredibly talented Eaglets showed that by defeating their final two opponents by a combined score of 18-1, including an 8-1 victory Saturday against Grand Rapids Catholic Central in the MHSAA Division 2 Final at McLane Stadium.
But after a 7-9 start to the season, what seemed inevitable by the end looked far from certain.
“That Ohio trip (on spring break), we really just kind of bonded closer,” St. Mary’s sophomore second baseman Alex Mooney said. “We said, ‘Enough is enough, we’re not losing anymore,’ and that’s actually what we did – we haven’t lost since. You see all the talent, you see all the (college) commitments and stuff, and it’s like, ‘Why aren’t we winning?’ Then it finally just clicked, and everything just came together.”
St. Mary’s (34-9-2) finished the season 27-0-2 over its final 29 games to claim the fourth Finals title in school history, and first since 2015.
"It’s good putting it all together,” Eaglets coach Matt Petry said. “At the beginning of the year while we were struggling, we would get good pitching and we wouldn’t swing. Or we would swing and we wouldn’t get good pitching. For the last two months, we’ve kind of put it all together and we’ve won every type of game possible, and the guys were just really confident coming into this weekend.”
That confidence was evident Saturday, as the Eaglets were always in control against the Cougars thanks to strong hitting and a stellar pitching performance from freshman starter Brock Porter. In six innings of work, Porter struck out seven while allowing five hits, three walks and one run.
“I definitely have confidence in Brock,” Mooney said. “He’s no normal freshman, so I don’t think the stage ever gets too big for him. He’s going to be a stud.”
Senior Dillon Kark closed the game, allowing one hit before forcing a double play ball to end the seventh inning.
Petry said he had complete confidence in Porter, despite his age, but he also knew he had the full strength of his deep pitching staff at the ready thanks to a complete-game outing from Thursday’s starter Logan Wood.
“Brock has thrown great for us,” Petry said. “That was his first start in the playoffs, but he had three wins prior to today in relief. We really couldn’t make a bad decision, whether we wanted to start Brock or Anthony Fett or Mikey Gall, we were confident in all those guys, but we went with Brock. It started with Logan Wood on Thursday going a complete, that way we had the whole rest of our staff available. Some very talented guys and guys with experience. After Brock we had Dillon Kark closing it out, which was very valuable.”
St. Mary’s bats wasted little time getting going, as they scored two runs in each of the first three innings to jump out to a 6-0 lead.
Senior catcher Harrison Poeszat opened the scoring with an RBI single, and Kameron Arnold, who came in to run for him, made it 2-0 with some heads-up play. After he stole second, the throw went into the outfield and Arnold took advantage of the confusion to run home.
Mooney drove in a pair of runs with a single in the second inning, and the Eaglets added two more runs on an error in the third.
Catholic Central (27-11) got on the board in the fifth inning with a sacrifice fly from Kyle Tepper that drove in Nate Trudeau.
Jack Mooney put St. Mary’s up 7-1 in the bottom of the fifth inning with a sacrifice that scored Grant Henson, and an RBI triple from Nolan Schubart in the bottom of the sixth closed out the scoring.
“We looked at their lineup before we played and we saw that the bottom of their order, 7-8-9, were seniors,” Catholic Central coach Tim MacKinnon said. “When you have seniors hitting 7, 8 and 9, you have a pretty decent ballclub, and we knew that. We had seen them play Thursday, and we knew that they would come out swinging the bat, and they did. We didn’t get the results we wanted, but we got a good effort out of Joe Collins. But a couple of balls got left up, and they tattooed them a little bit and got some runs early. Then we had to fight back from there.”
Mooney led the way for St. Mary’s with three hits, while Schubert had two. Cole Sibley added an RBI.
Brenden Leonard led Catholic Central with two hits.
“We had a great season,” MacKinnon said. “We ran up against a really nice ballclub. Matt Petry does a good job with his team, and they played all aspects of the game very well. Porter did a great job, they hit the ball extremely well today and played good defense. After the game, I told (my team) they had a good season, and you don’t throw one season into a situation where one last game means everything for the season.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Orchard Lake St. Mary's Brock Porter makes his move toward the plate Saturday during the Division 2 championship game. (Middle) The Eaglets' Cole Sibley (9) slides into second base as Nate Trudeau awaits the throw.