This summer marks 50 years since St. Matthias 8th grade baseball team won the City Championship. I'll list the names of the players, some of you may want to know who is who:
Top Row L to R: Coach Tom Watson, Don Pilson, Bob Tabler, Bill Ralston, George Pearl, Larry Hunter, Mike Sills. Bottom L to R: John Bray, Ernie 'Junior' Wallace, Ray Demonbrum, Jerry Blandford, Duke Corey, Mike Baum. Two that I know were missing from this photo but were a big part of the team were Dub Jansing and Steve Weismueller.
I played a lot of baseball from age 12 to 18 years old. I was lucky to have good coaches and played with a lot of good ballplayers. These guys were the core of a good Flaget High School team that came in 3rd in the State tournament in 1963. A Tournament to this day is one of the big regrets that I have. We should have won that thing. We lost a close semi-final game that we should have won and the team we lost to went on to win the Championship game in a route.
When I was a kid, we played a lot of ball. We didn't just play when we had games or practice. We met at fields, chose up sides and played most every day. Those were the days. It was never "to" hot to go outside. It was to hot to stay inside. No air conditioning. My air conditioning back then was going out on the front porch in the morning, when the porch was shaded, and laying on the cool concrete. Oh well, 50 years ago. Wow! Congratulations Team! The first 8th Grade City Championship ever won by a St. Matthias Crusaders Team!
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