Well Say Hey Willie, Tell Ty Cobb and Joe Dimaggio!
Ooops, that baseball stuff.
However, longtime baseball fans such as myself who watched games between the Milwaukee Braves and other National League foes and who watched the weekly New York Yankees games on TV when CBS owned them also remember baseball announcer Mel Allen.
I always enjoyed watching "This Week in Baseball" with Mel Allen doing the talking.
Baseball and my intense interest for it waned dramatically after the strike in 1994. I really don't follow baseball very closely anymore and only get to one or two baseball games a year at Miller Park. My son-in-law and I have an annual tradition of going to the final regular season home game there each year. I go not to see the game as much as enjoy the moments with him. Some of you might know him as the former Poynette Athletic Director, then Janesville Athletic Director, then the Athletic Director at Portage and now Athletic Director at Baraboo. He is also an excellent softball umpire.
I'm going to attempt to do a "This Week in Wisconsin Fastpitch" later today, tonight and probably tomorrow morning covering the past week.
It will be a separate article in the News area of this web site.
I was in Baraboo for rounds two and three yesterday of the Baraboo Tournament where Homestead beat LaCrosse Logan 4-3 in the title game. Other schools taking part were Columbus, Beloit Turner, Beloit Memorial, Westfield, Pius XI and of course Baraboo. The umpire crews did a nice job of keeping things moving and were right on top of things. Good umpiring makes for a better fan experience not to mention player and coach experience.
I had a chance to chat for a while with another longtime softball coach or two in Turner's Bob Sulser as well as Westfield's Mary Mades and Homestead coach Dave Keel. They are all great coaches and great people who enjoy working with kids and just love the game. Dave, by the way recently became just the second or third Wisconsin High School coach to have been in the third base coaches box when the team he was coaching won for the 500th time. When one thinks back to the the historical background and the growth of girls fastpitch in Wisconsin, the number 500 is pretty significant. It's more significant now than it will be in the years to come. Why? Simply the number of games that are now played each season compared to how many were allowed when coaches who have all those victory numbers got into the game. The maximum number of regular season games a school team can play now is 26. It hasn't always been that way. In the early days of the sport, from 1976 through the most of the 80s the limit was 12 games in the regular season and the tournament followed. In the earliest days of the WIAA State Softball Tournament there was just one division of play. The championship game of the 1976 state tournament was a "David and Goliath" story only with females involved. Madison West beat Elmwood 27-8. In 1977 Elmwood turned the tables on Goliath and beat Sheboygan South 15-13. In 1978 Loyal kept the small town dreams alive with an 8-6 victory over Madison LaFollette. I saw all three of those games.
The sport was taking off. In 1979 the WIAA featured two divisions of play, Class A and Class B. Kimberly won it's first state title and that was in Class A beating Madison LaFollette 8-6. Loyal won it's second title and consecutive one by beating Bonduel18-2. In 1980 Kimberly won again beating Ashwaubenon 6-2 and Loyal chalked up state title number three with another title game win over Bonduel, that time 16-7.
In 1981 a third division was added to softball by the WIAA. The state tournament continued to be played on a slowpitch softball facility in Waukesha however. There remained three divisions until 2002 when WISAA's demise accorded WIAA membership to those schools. In 2002 the WIAA moved to four divisions of play. Now there has been talk about adding a fifth divisions within the ranks of the WFSCA.It will be interesting to see if that goes anywhere as it will be met with opposition by the largest school coaches as it was in basketball.
Some teams to keep an eye on in the next week that have escaped notoriety whether intentional or accidental are: Peshtigo, Cashton, Homestead, Hurley, Lomira, and there are others.
A pitcher I enjoy watching this season has been Jordyn Kleman of LaCrosse Logan. In Baraboo yesterday she won two games in the circle including a no-hitter and she laced a pair of long shots for home runs, one against Beloit Memorial and one against Homestead, a game she did not appear in the circle in.
Arcadia's Taylor Haines is having a great season as well. Unbeaten with few free passes and lots of kids walking back to their benches dragging their bats only to be hung up on the bat rack after striking out. Twenty-eight strikeouts in a 13-inning win over West Salem. A one-hitter and 14 ks in a 4-0 win, including her solo shot to make it 1-0 over Westby last Tuesday seem to be ordinary efforts for her.
Jessica Steindorf of Marshall is having a great year as well. A left-handed leadoff hitter for the Cardinals, Steindorf is a tough out for any pitcher trying to retire her. A two-out, solo shot in the top of the seventh was the only run scored on Friday in a game at Poynette. The run and the win most likely gives her club sole possesion of the Capitol South title over Waterloo.
Have a great Day!
Keep it Rising!
Bob
