(#72)
Excerpts from the Jackson Daily News, by Larry Kiedrowski, April, 1972.
Forest Hill baseball coach Bill “Moose” Perry has connived his Rebels right into the driver’s seat in the District 6-AA championship race.
Using a bit of psychology and a goodly amount of baseball savvy, the Rebels coach has his team on top of in the tough 11-team district with a 7-0 record. They took over sole possession of first place Monday night on the Rebel diamond by virtue of a sticky 5-4 triumph over previously unbeaten… in 18 starts… Jackson Central.
The victory by “The Hill” before an overflow but chilled crowd Monday evening, was quite typical of the way Perry has guided his youngsters to their perfect standing.
In Monday’s afternoon’s paper, a glaring, bold, black headline said, “Forest Hill’s Bill Perry Scared to Death.” The article under the headline pointed out the perfect 18-0 record of Central’s Tigers and how good they were and as Perry readily admitted, how “frightened” he was of playing them.
“When they (Central) beat St. Joseph Saturday night,” confessed Perry to us Tuesday morning, “I really thought we had a good chance to be them.”
That seemingly strange line of thinking by Moose really wasn’t strange at all. What he was getting at was that a 2-0 win over a rugged St. Joseph team, with the Tigers chunking a third-string pitcher, plus the fact Central had beaten Forest Hill 12-1 in their first meeting this year, might make the downtown Bengals just a little over-confident.
Whether or not the Tigers were indeed too confident Monday is speculation, but Perry’s quote “scared to death” has to be questioned by the way the Reb coach went about his work.
Gambling on an array of baseball’s finer points– hit-and-runs, bunts, stolen bases, intentional walks, etc.– Perry saw his team come up with only three hits but won the game anyway as he sent one of his Rebels winging toward the plate on a “suicide squeeze play.”
The play that gave Forest Hill the winning run in the final inning was hotly contested by Central coaches Louis “Skin” Boteler and Willis Steenhuis who argued that Rebel Stewart Cliburn was out at home. They may have been right.
From where we watched (on a hill overlooking home plate) we were offered a better view than plate umpire Jesse Jaynes and it appeared to us that Central catcher Dwight King had tagged out the runner.
Jayne had lost sight of Cliburn streaking toward home as he moved around to rule the squeeze bunt by Mike Sahler fair or foul down the first base line and was actually out of position when the Tigers fired the ball to the plate.
But, as the man says, that’s what makes horse races.
Cliburn had a lead-off walk to get things started in the bottom of the seventh with the scored tied at 4. Eddie Ramsey singled, putting runners on first and second. Both runners moved up on a wild pitch by McCaskill setting the stage for Sahler’s game winning bunt.
Central’s “Iron Man,” Joe McCaskill (9-1) went the distance on the mound, striking out 14, but Rebel sophomore Stewart Cliburn (9-2) claimed the complete game victory, while striking out 10.
Sahler had an RBI double in a 4-run fourth for the Rebels. McCaskill had a double and triple for the Tigers.
“This proves we can beat the big ball club, but we’ve got to play near perfect ball to win against Callaway Thursday,” said Perry, who believes his club still has a long road to travel. “It will be easier for the other teams with their material, but we’re gonna battle the whole way.”
“We Believe!” declared the Rebel mentor.
The district race is far from over and four teams, Forest Hill, Central, Callaway and Wingfield, have a shot at winning it. And for Forest Hill, long-noted for its other sports, baseball is just beginning.
Perry has a virtually all freshman-sophomore unit and it’s obvious they’ll have a chance to win it all for years to come.
Rick’s note: Especially if Jesse Jaynes is behind the plate. 🙂 It’s ironic that a lead-off walk and wild pitch, even with Joe on the mound, doomed the Tigers on this night. That’s baseball.
The Rebels did win the District 6 championship but not the state championship in 1972, but they won it all in 1974 when those freshman and sophomores became juniors and seniors.
I miss those days when we had a local morning and afternoon newspaper reporting on local sports stories throughout the year.
Rick Clarke's Diary of a Mad Baseball Coach 