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Tuesday, August 7, 2007 11:02 PM CDT
Hard-hitting, seven-time champs have question marks
Arlington Heights team tough, but not invincible
BY BRIAN NIELSEN Sports Editor
bnielsen@jg-tc.com
ARLINGTON – This might be the hardest hitting team yet for Arlington Heights Post 208, which won its seventh American Legion baseball state championship last year.
That does not mean coach Lloyd Meyer in his 53rd year as the coach is counting on an eighth state title this week at Mattoon’s Grimes Field.
“We hit a lot better than we ever have,” Meyer said. “Probably up and down the lineup we’re a better hitting team than we have been in 10 years. But good pitching always beats good hitting and we’ve lost some games against good pitchers. I never brag about our hitting. It doesn’t matter to me.”
The defending state champs are 38-9 including a 5-4 loss to state tourney host Mattoon Post 88 in last month’s Champaign Wooden Bat Tournament.
Arlington Heights also proved human letting a 6-2 lead turn into a 7-6 loss to Palatine in the first round of the First Division but came through the losers’ bracket to win the Cook County tournament and a return berth to the state.
With 12 players on the roster listing colleges – some playing college baseball and others not – Arlington looks like another formidable force even if not full strength this week.
Tracie Ruffie, who pitched the game that got Carthage College into the NCAA Division III College World Series this spring, suffered his first loss of the legion season in the division tournament, pitched 1 1/3 innings of relief two days later and then came back to pitch a five-hitter and 5-1 revenge win over Palatine in Saturday’s title game.
That leaves the question of how much the lefty has left for state.
“He throws very easy,” Meyer said. “He hardly shaves but he’s a college freshman for Carthage. He’s been around. He’s a great kid. I don’t know if I’ll start him Wednesday or Thursday but he bounces back. He throws so effortlessly.”
Also scheduled to miss at least Thursday’s action is Scott Winters, a center fielder with a .422 batting average and four home runs and Arlington Height’s No. 2 pitcher with a 7-3 record. After a season at Wisconsin-Parkside, Winters is transferring to play for Heartland College.
Winters is to be gone at least a day because of the death of a great-grandmother.
That still leaves Kyle Gaedele, who leads Arlington Heights with a .435 batting average and also has gone 7-1 pitching the summer before his senior year at Rolling Meadows High School.
Arlington Heights’ shortstop Jason Ganek is batting .440 and has signed to play for Illinois-Chicago and Lincoln College’s Matt Serna has a .422 average this legion season.
All of these statistics are the work of some catch-up duty from scorebooks just before the state tournament. None were available during the year.
“We don’t keep any stats,” Meyers said. “We never have kept stats. We just lie a little bit sometimes. I don’t want to hear about a .500 hitter who hits against 16-year-old but can’t hit against a 19-year-old.”
Who is to argue with Meyer, whose teams have finished second in the American Legion World Series twice and fifth once during his more than a half-century of coaching the program.
“I know, I shouldn’t be out there,” Meyers said. “I started at 19.”
He had a stint in the Army but came back for more legion baseball.
“I said I’ll coach the legion team until I don’t want to,” he said, “and I’ve done it 53 years.”
Contact Brian Nielsen at bnielsen@jg-tc.com or 238-6856.
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