(#43)
(Most recent fine-tuning- October, 2024)
It was the 2nd round of the 2008 Mississippi high school baseball playoffs. Clinton was hosting Northwest Rankin in game 1 of a best of three series with the winner advancing to the North State Championship series. The Arrows had never beaten NWR. My son Josh would be the starting pitcher in game 1. The head coach of the Cougars was one of the best baseball players (and coaches) I ever coached, Jeff McClaskey.
What a fun matchup! What could possibly go wrong?
I left Hinds after the 2005 season. It was time. I coached another year, well almost, at Pearl High School in 2006. But at this time, I was in my second, and final year, as an assistant principal at Chastain Middle School in Jackson. All coaches have a master’s degree in school administration, don’t they?
Anyway, I was retiring at the end of June and moving on to other things. I had a lot of free time to watch Josh play.
Josh was a great right-handed pitcher. He had pitched since they allowed pitchers to pitch at age 9. He had physically matured into a long, lanky pitcher with a high leg kick, had a lively fastball in the upper 80’s, a great “spike” slider, and a devastating “split-finger” fastball, all three coming from the same release point and all three pitches were very difficult for hitters to pick up and consistently get their barrels on.
He also had the intangibles. He was very confident, highly motivated, and completely determined. I called them the essential attitudes, the big four, the must-have components of the mentally tough competitor. (Note: Determination is symbolized by “the balls,” thus the “big four,” intestical fortitude, a phrase that I coined years later.
Josh had a great mound presence. He always looked like he wanted to be there. His body language presented the physical presence of those “essential attitudes.” Through his body language, he created a visual display of what discipline, confidence, motivation and determination… toughness looked like. And by projecting these things, he actually triggered those much needed attitudes from the outside-in instead of from the inside-out, without even having to think about them. When you can create the desired look and behavior on the outside, the mindset believes what it sees and feels and follows along “as-if” it was true. The mindset and behavior must always be in harmony. One creates the other.
He was poised and focused, with a great pitcher’s game face with steely eyes, a confident smirk on his lips and clenched jaw and other great physical “body language,” all which triggered what I called controlled adrenaline, energy in motion… emotions under control which were needed to compete at a high level.
Jeff had played for me for three years at Magnolia Academy and then one year at Hinds, when I was an assistant to Bill Marchant. He had those exact characteristics I just described about Josh. He was great lead-off hitter and centerfielder, and put up ridiculous numbers in the four years he played for me. In 45 games during the 1981 season, he hit a team high .446, reached base 113 times (.667 OBP), scored 77 runs, hit 5 home runs, walked 40 times, stole 36 bases, played an error-less center field and led our team to a third consecutive state championship and a 40-5 record, becoming the first Mississippi high school baseball team to win 40 games in a season. He was a major factor in a 98-12 run over those three seasons at Magnolia. At Hinds in 1983, he hit .427 with 32 RBI, 28 stolen bases, 30 walks, and an on base percentage of .613. He also had two great seasons for Coach Boo Ferris at Delta State University.
Jeff began his great coaching career at Porter’s Chapel Academy in 1986 and then moved on to building a great tradition at Northwest Rankin beginning in 1989. The Cougars won the 6A State Championship in 2005. Jeff also had the big four both as a player and as a coach.
Game time was set for Friday night at 7 pm at Arrow Field, just right around the block from our house.
Only one problem, I had a conflict.
I had been a member of Mayberry Ministries since 1997. We performed a stage version of the Andy Griffith Show and we helped raise funds for church ministries and missions to use in sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In this 20 year ministry, we performed over 200 shows in Mississippi, Arkansas, and Alabama and raised over three-quarters of a million dollars for these gospel causes.
The current show at Terry Baptist Church had been booked for months, long before this playoff series. I played Sheriff Andy Taylor. There was no chance the play could be rescheduled or that I could miss the show.
What would Andy do? It was simple show business. The show must go on. Both shows, the show and the game. I prayed for rain and my prayer went unanswered, well not unanswered, but not quite what I wanted. It was sunny and 85 degrees at game time.
So we devised a plan. My wife Patty would video (VHS) the game and keep us updated by texting every detail and my phone would be backstage and I’d check it between scenes. Josh is in his thirties now and still watches that video from time-to-time. It’s a classic!
The Arrows won 2-1 in 9 innings. Josh went the distance, allowing 3 hits, 1 earned run and struck out 11. The split-finger fastball was dominant and he threw it a lot. Why not? He also led-off the bottom of the ninth with a double, advanced to third on an error, and scored the winning run on a sacrifice fly by Adam Thigpen.
Priceless!
My family and friend(s) said, “I can’t believe you weren’t at that game.”
And I replied, “Oh, I was.”
NWR won the second game of the series. The Cougars Zach Polzin hit 3 home runs that night in a 6-0 win.
In the championship game on Monday, which I did see, Jeff Tingle was the starting pitcher and pitched six strong innings.
I remember seeing something that I will never forget as a baseball dad and a coach. It was the look on the faces of the Northwest players who were on the field in the bottom of the sixth inning watching Josh jog down to the bullpen to get ready to pitch the top of the seventh. Those facial expressions were not the looks of the big four. That is a great tribute to Josh.
He retired the three hitters he faced in the seventh, 2 strikeouts and a comebacker, to pick up the save.
The Arrows won and advanced to play Tupelo for the North Mississippi Championship. Josh pitched a complete game 8-0 shutout in game one. Tupelo won game 2. He pitched 4 2/3 scoreless innings in relief on one day’s rest in a game three series loss. That’s 21 2/3 innings in the playoffs allowing only one run; 21 zeros on the board. That’s Sandy Koufax and Warren Guerriero kind of stuff.
Josh went on to play for Hinds and Belhaven and eventually entered the coaching profession and is currently the pitching coach and recruiting coordinator at Hinds. He can still throw 1000 pitches a day in batting practice. 😁
Jeff coached at NWR for 31 years, winning 800 games, and built an awesome baseball stadium which is named in his honor.
Mayberry Ministries continued ministering until 2017.
And the game I missed?
It was the best game I never saw!
Jeff McClaskey Stadium
Rick Clarke's Diary of a Mad Baseball Coach 