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.)
Saugatuck's Dunn Makes MLB Debut, OLSM's Mooney Continues Impressive Climb
By
Steve Vedder
Special for MHSAA.com
August 5, 2024
Blake Dunn has realized his dream while Alex Mooney's chance may be right around the corner.
The careers of the two former Michigan high school baseball stars have taken major steps forward this summer, with Dunn, a Saugatuck graduate native, earning two stints with the Cincinnati Reds, and Mooney, from Orchard Lake St. Mary’s, tearing up the High-Class A Midwest League with Lake County, just northeast of Cleveland.
Both credit modest upbringings for their continuing baseball success. Dunn said his senior class included around 85 students.
"It was definitely hard because a lot of guys have played against a high level of competition from bigger schools," said Dunn, who earned 16 varsity letters across four high school sports at Saugatuck. "But a lot of good athletes come from smaller schools, and we have kind of a chip on our shoulders. That's no knock on smaller schools or their communities; we just work that much harder to make things happen.
"You can't just sit back and go with the flow. You work hard, set your mind on what you need to do and just go for it. I definitely take pride in where I come from and represent Saugatuck to the best of my ability or when I'm out in public."
Mooney, who was part of Orchard Lake St. Mary’s winning three MHSAA Finals titles over six years, said he traces much of his success to being part of an outstanding prep baseball program, regardless of the school's size. St. Mary's was an all-boys school during his time there, with just under 600 students.
"Playing in the Catholic League was huge for me," he said. "It's the best league in the state, and playing there just made me better. I learned early how to win, and that's carried over (to the pros)."
Dunn was one of the great all-around athletes of his generation at Saugatuck. He had more than 1,500 career points in basketball, was a four-time hurdles Finals champion in track and a member of the Michigan High School Baseball Coaches Association Dream Team, and still finds himself all over the MHSAA football record book. His 113 career touchdowns are fourth all-time while his 2,748 rushing yards in 2015 are 12th best. Dunn's 827 points in 41 career games is second all-time to 924 points by East Grand Rapids' Kevin Grady in 51 games from 2001-04. Dunn's 6,954 rushing yards remains eighth all-time.
Dunn, who also had 26 consecutive 100-yard rushing games, said it seemed natural to him to play multiple sports in high school.
"I think it's the right thing for guys to test their ability to do a lot of things," he said. "It comes down to task management. You don't get a lot of free time because it's always go-go. So you need a good work ethic to stay on top of things."
Dunn and Mooney are in the midst of notable summers. Slowed by the injury bug dating all the way back to high school and then Western Michigan, Dunn developed into a bona fide prospect in the Reds system a year ago when he hit .312 with 23 homers and 79 RBIs at Double-A Chattanooga and Low-A Dayton.
Statistically, Dunn is batting .226 with six homers and 28 RBIs in Triple-A this season, but earned a 10-day stint with the Reds from June 4-13 and then again from July 3-10. He collected his first major league hit against the Cubs on June 7.
A shortstop, Mooney has hit wherever he's been. He batted .444 as a sophomore and .460 with nine homers and 57 RBIs as a senior at Orchard Lake St. Mary’s, then hit .305 with 113 runs, 30 doubles, 11 homers and 33 stolen bases (in 39 attempts) in 117 career games at Duke. With the Lake County Captains this season, Mooney is tops in the Midwest League in runs (65), third in stolen bases (34), tied for 14th in home runs (10) and tied for 16th in RBIs (46).
Mooney said hitting has always been his calling card.
"I feel like I've been able to hit since I was around 8 years old," he said. "My dad coached me when I was young, and I still talk to him about it when I go home. Hitting gets significantly harder, but your mindset is that you learn to flush a bad day. I learned at Orchard Lake St. Mary that you're still a good hitter if you go 0-for-4. You just get on with it."
Mooney, the state's Mr. Baseball Award winner in 2021 and two-time MHSBCA Dream Team member, was ranked among the top five shortstops nationally out of high school by Perfect Game and Under Armour. He went on to become all-Atlantic Coast Conference at Duke before being drafted in the seventh round by Cleveland in 2021.
Among the lessons he's learned in the professional ranks is that baseball is a business.
"It's a job. A darn good one, but a job," he said. "But I also know that the worst day you could have in baseball is better than the best day in another field. Baseball is a grind, though."
Dunn has battled his share of the grind since becoming a 15th-round draft choice by the Reds in 2021. He hit .333 with 11 homers, 50 stolen bases and 78 RBIs in135 games at Western Michigan. Injuries plagued him as a Bronco, then limited him to just 48 games in his first two years in the Reds system. This year he missed time with facial lacerations after getting hit with a pitch.
No matter the difficulties, Dunn said he always believed he could become a major leaguer. The size of high schools and subsequent level of competition was never a consideration.
"I've never considered myself an underachiever, and in my mind it doesn't matter where I've been,” he said. "I know I have talent, and I've worked hard. I feel like I have a lot of years left in baseball."
Dunn and Mooney are just two of several former Michigan high school ballplayers making a mark in the minor leagues, including two members of arguably the best-ever MHSBCA Dream Team pitching staff in 2016. Tommy Henry (Portage Northern) and Karl Kauffman (Brother Rice) have combined to pitch in 46 MLB games with Arizona and Colorado, respectively, the last two seasons. Henry is 2-3 in nine games with the Diamondbacks this season. The other members of the 2016 Dream Team pitchers were Jack Weisenburger (Rockford) and Mike Mokma (Holland Christian), both of whom pitched professionally, and John Baker (Hartland), who went on to become a two-time all-Mid-American Conference pitcher at Ball State and a 29th-round pick of the Marlins in 2019.
Baker outdueled Henry in the 2016 Division 1 Final.
Another former Michigan high school baseball star has been a godsend to a depleted Atlanta Braves pitching staff. Spencer Schwellenbach (Saginaw Heritage), has gone 4-5 with a 4.04 ERA in 11 starts with the Braves. He was the 2018 Michigan Gatorade Player of the Year who went 18-6 with a 0.73 ERA at Nebraska before being taken by the Braves in the second round of the 2021 draft.
Among the other former prep stars busy in the minors are Sam Weatherly (Howell) and Brock Porter (Orchard Lake St. Mary). Weatherly is 3-1 with a 2.85 ERA in 30 games with the High-A Fresno Grizzlies. He was a 27th-round pick by the Rockies in 2020 after going 4-0 with 106 strikeouts over 72 innings in three years at Clemson.
Porter, the state's Mr. Baseball in 2022, is 0-4 with a 6.98 ERA in 19 1/3 combined innings in Rookie League and High-A. A fourth-round pick by the Rangers in 2022, Porter started 21 games with 95 strikeouts in 69 1/3 innings during his first pro season a year ago at the Rookie League level.
Other Michigan natives in the minors include Luke Russo (Howell), who is 5-3 with a 4.81 ERA at High-A Jersey Shore, and Andrew Taylor (Caledonia), who is 1-1 with a 5.27 ERA at High-A Asheville.
PHOTOS (Top) From left, former Orchard Lake St. Mary’s star Alex Mooney and Saugatuck standout Blake Dunn are succeeding in minor league baseball as they pursue Major League careers. (Middle) Dunn stands in for a pitch playing for the Louisville Bats this season. (Below) Mooney prepares to field a grounder for the Lake County Captains. (Photos courtesy of the Lake County Captains and Louisville Bats; top Dunn photo by Cam Anderson and middle by Anna Rouch.)