Abandoned - Epilogue

 ’89 huh?......yeesh…

That was part of the reply I received from Jeff Swigris, the shortstop on our 1989 Quincy College team, in response to the text I sent him in February 2024,

During a three-week period, I contacted most of my players from that squad from 35 years ago. There were a few guys who I had communicated with occasionally through Facebook or a rare phone conversation. Mike Egenes and Lance Marshall, two freshmen from the 1989 squad, were the only two I had seen in the last 30 years.

Most had fallen into the same category as Swigris. I hadn’t seen them since my coaching years at Quincy College which ended after the 1991 season.

Although they didn’t use the exact same expression as Jeff, I knew that most of them would wonder “Why do you want to write something about us?”

 I wanted to make sure I could ease anyone’s curiosity or angst as quickly as possible and assure them that my ambition was very sincere.

 I said, “Everything I write about you and the team will be positive. That’s easy because I have honestly felt that way about all of you and that year. Finally, I think it’s an inspiring tale and an emotional story and coincidentally it happens to be 35 years after we played our last game as a team.”

They could call it an anniversary if they wanted to, but that was not the impetus for writing.

The four months spent coaching that ’89 squad may be the most significant time I ever spent in baseball. Twenty years of coaching youth leagues, collegiately and professionally added to 25 years of professional scouting has certainly been memorable, but I don’t think any year of baseball has felt more purposeful than 1989.    
I have always felt that what these players experienced, if not unprecedented, has thankfully been few and far between in college baseball history.

There have been teams that had worse seasonal records than 6-40, losing streaks longer than 25 games, and lost a game 32-0 (or worse), but the wins and losses of that year is only a fragmented look at the entire picture.

The 1989 team kept a collegiate baseball program standing when baffling decisions had threatened to, if not completely disassemble the program, never allowing it to compete at a true Division 2 level again.

Sophomore Chad Gooding, astutely speaking about this writing, “It’s about the tumultuous season that birthed the future of the program for Quincy University, which is something we never contemplated in the presence of the moment.”

Jim Wissel, Derek Van, Jim Cerneka, Chad Gooding, Brian Mullen, Lance Marshall, Brian Allen, Dave Schuering, John Cassidy, Matt Baalman, and Mike Egenes were players whose contributions pushed the baseball program forward. Their against-all-odds actions allowed their ’89 colleagues:  Elvis Turkovich, Dave Mikolaczak, Don Hargis, Tony Preall, Jeff Swigris, Mark Trapp, and Joe Nardi an opportunity to play a major role on the 1990 team.

That 1990 team went 25-17 and the 1991 club went 25-15-2 and started a chain of eight successive winning seasons. There is no doubt that the efforts of the ’89 squad led directly to the success of the ’90 team which led to the success of the ’91 club, and it goes on with no assured way to measure how long the 1989 team’s endeavors continued to have an impact on QU baseball. 

After the 1989 season, the QU collegiate baseball program has played 36 seasons. They’ve had only two losing seasons, two .500 marks, and 32 years of winning campaigns.

QU baseball has won 30 or more games 18 times and six of those 30 or more-winning seasons, saw the Hawks win 40 or more.

In the last 17 years, QU has put together stalwart seasons that have included ten GLVC (Great Lakes Valley Conference) conference titles and/or NCAA appearances. The Hawks joined the GLVC in 1994.

The Hawks’ baseball program has flourished because of outstanding coaches and players through the last three decades. 

Well-deserved congratulations to the QU players and the five head baseball coaches of the last 30 years: Pat Atwell, Greg McVey, Brian Unger, Josh Rabe, and Matt Schissel. Their work has made the Quincy University Baseball Hawks one of the premier Division 2 baseball programs in the Midwest. 

We made sure that after missing the 1988 fall season to have a superb 1989  September and October autumn, setting the stage for the ‘90 season. It was a fall season that began with a 25 man addition of freshman and junior college players plus several ex-players from the 1988 team who came back to the program after a one-year hiatus. 

 The 1990 team was able to create a junior varsity program for those young players who needed some experience at a higher level than they had in their high school year

1990 QU team that finished the season 25-17, 19 more wins than the '89 squad. The '91 team finished 25-15-2.

1989 was over. Coming back from the depths of complete disregard for the players and the program was inexcusable, but the 1989 team opened the door for future QC/QU clubs who, to their credit, took full advantage of what the Hawks' team had produced going through the quagmire of that season. 

For me, in terms of wins and losses, it was a most difficult year, but it was not the most disappointing year I’ve ever had in my baseball career. Maybe that ‘89 season becomes a bit more gratifying as the years add up. 

Abandoned - Chapter 12: It was the Summer of ‘89

 The Hawks’ 1989 season ended on May 2^nd, the same way it began on March 13^th, with a doubleheader loss to Missouri-Saint Louis.

And in between, there were 51 days of the most disconcerting baseball experience that any of the 19 players who made up the QC roster had ever gone through. It was a campaign of personal feelings and emotions that ranged from embarrassment, disappointment, and frustration to a few moments of relief and celebration. 

 
Some observers and maybe even a player might say it was a baseball year of few highs and many lows. I would dispute, but respect that representation with some of those commentaries coming from a direction and individuals who understood what had transpired in the past year.  There were a few other criticisms from others whose reasoning and portrayal meant absolutely nothing to me.  I had the advantage of age and the experience of familiarity and insight to grasp what would and eventually did take place with the Quincy College baseball program in the years to come.  Many of the '89ers" would continue to be a part of that in the years to come.

There is always a transition of students leaving their initial college of choice after their freshman year and in our specific case, I don’t think baseball had anything to do with their departure. We could have been a complete reversal and finished 40-6 and some players would have transferred and/or reconsidered the whole higher education concept.

Too far from home, missing a girlfriend, academic concerns, financial worries, a change to a major not available at their first-choice college and a myriad of other reasons can be present. 

The summer months of mid-May to late August found four players from the ’89 team, who were returning to Quincy College, choosing different paths than baseball with all of them form-fitting their academic and/or work schedule during the school year.  
There were some who had to step away for a few summer months. One pitcher who had thrown a ton of innings during the season needed a summer of non-throwing activities. He received his summer physical training by filling, lifting, and stacking 50-pound bags of wheat working for a seed company.

Quincy was not part of the CICL (Central Illinois Collegiate League) in 1989. It would be another 5-6 years before a Quincy franchise would join the league. That would have been a very viable option for several of our players had that opportunity been present in the summer of 1989.

Summer school was an option for some, either at Quincy, or a college close to home.
Then there were a few individuals who had an opportunity to undergo a baseball pilgrimage and a well-deserved change-of-pace. 

Catcher Bud Mcginnes had an invitational tryout in the summer with the USA Team in Millington, Tennessee. 

I had coached a team of college players in Millington one year earlier. We faced the 1988 Olympic team twice and were handed two sound losses, but what an observation post and thrill it was to participate in those games.

Bud had a much better day participating on the field in Millington than my summer group of fine collegiate players had. He went 1-2 with a double and threw out two baserunners. He also had an opportunity to catch a couple of the finer college pitchers in the country.
He wasn’t selected for any further workouts that are set up in large part to see pitching prospects pitch in live situations.

Ending his college career in that setting was a virtuous reward for a player whose four years at Quincy College included a grab-the-lunch pail work ethic and ended with being a leader of a team that badly needed player guidance. Every teammate will always remember his walk-off home run that gave the 1989 club their first win of the season.

Bud’s career performance numbers were clearly affected by the team’s 1987 van accident that severely injured three QC players. Bud broke both wrists and a kneecap that day and played his final two seasons with pins in his right knee and a slight limp that became more obvious when he ran down the baseline.

Maybe I was partially blinded by his overall catching skills, but I never saw his knee affect his ability to block pitches, throw out runners or run-down foul pops. 

It’s an understatement to say that 6-40 was not the way he wanted to close out his Quincy College career, but he and his brother, Pete made a permanent and positive mark on the Quincy College program. 

Bud carried the water for us through most of the 1989 season and I know his teammates will always recall his contributions. His last college coach did.
Simply put, Bud McGinnes was a baseball player. 

Abandoned - Chapter 11: The Final Lap

SIU- Edwardsville was our first opponent after the Northeast wins. They had beaten us at their place a week earlier and they repeated their convincing victories, outscoring us 16-1 at Q-Stadium. They were clearly a more experienced club with good pitching and there was very little chance we could score many runs against them, and we didn’t-just seven in four games.

The same issues continued against Lewis and Bradley, both on the road. We plated only six runs in the four combined games. Despite what we had been able to do against Northeast Missouri and to a lesser scale against Milliken it was not going to happen against pitching that was a level or a couple of levels higher than those two clubs.

I didn’t think we had regressed, and we were a better overall team than during the opening 25 games, but still noticeably behind the programs that we needed to be better than or at least on par with soon.

A 4-3 loss to Iowa Wesleyan didn’t help our spirits. It was our seventh straight loss. Mikolaczak pitched well in his starts against Bradley and Iowa Wesleyan but picked up the loss in both games.

He had three of our four wins and had given us a lot of innings as both a starter and a reliever. We had Grand View (Ia.) for four straight games at home. They were our final games at Q-Stadium in 1989 and with our last two games at UMSL, a team that defeated us twice to begin our season, I thought that some wins at home might extend the message that we indeed had improved as the long season was winding down.

Unfortunately, we came out and dropped both games of the opening doubleheader, 11-7 and 4-0. Tony pitched well in game two as he had most of the season. The sophomore right hander threw complete games in four of his seven starts and was second on our pitching staff in batting average against for the season. Tony and Don Hargis were both better position players than pitchers, but they always took the ball, never complained, and gave us valuable innings the entire season. 

All these years later, I can still remember feeling good about the guys and how they had handled everything that had been thrown at them during the 42 games we had played in less than two months. 

 
Admittingly, I know I sat back later that evening after the doubleheader loss and wondered, ‘Why in the world were we scheduled to play Sunday, Monday and Tuesday doubleheaders at the end of a regular season that was wrapping up so early (May 2^nd)'That’s a very early closing date for most college programs.

The cynic in me saw the March 13^th opener and a May 2^nd shutdown (46 games in 51 days) as a “let’s just start late and then end this as quickly as possible.” I don’t know who put the schedule together, but if it was done by the decision-makers who didn’t hire a coach until December then it makes sense. 

I understand if Coach Clark did it in advance and didn’t know he was leaving. If most, if not all his non-seniors came back plus a few newcomers stepped in it would have been a club that probably would have been competitive in most of the games.
  
Then I kicked myself for looking back at something we had no control over and, even for just a brief period, losing sight of tomorrow.

Tomorrow came and Brian Allen and his QC teammates brought everything back into focus. We won the opener 12-11 with the veterans leading the way. Swigris went three for five, Cassidy went two for four with a couple of RBIs, Preall doubled and Mcginnes had two hits and drove in the winning run in the ninth inning. Mikolajczak picked up his third win of the year. 

Brian Allen was a 5’8” righthander who was second on our club in appearances and fourth in innings pitched. There were a couple of times during the ’89 season when Brian, in baseball parlance, “took one for the team,” and just got us through an inning when the game had long been decided. The second game against the University of Iowa was one of those games.

We had already used six pitchers in the Grand View series and given up 26 runs in three games. We had a doubleheader versus UMSL the next day and we were hoping Brian could take us as far as possible in his game four start.

Brian was not going to overpower anybody, but as a team we only averaged slightly more than two strikeouts a game, so our opponents were going to put the ball in play. Alot. 

Grand View made plenty of contact, a truckload of two hop ground balls, pop ups, and lazy fly balls. We picked up one in the first, five in the second, and carried a 6-0 lead into the fifth. Grand View scored three in the fifth to cut the lead, but that was as close as they came.

Brian held them scoreless in the sixth and seventh and we picked up our third doubleheader sweep at home. 

The freshman right hander threw a total of 68 pitches and the seven-inning game took an hour and fifteen minutes.  It was not only the quickest, but the most efficient start we had all season and the freshman picked up the first win in his college career.
 I don’t think I was the only one in a QC uniform who saw Brian’s game as more than a win. The entire day was an unmistakable illustration of what had been accomplished since mid-January and the six months prior that had been shoved aside.

If that description sounds too histrionic to some then they failed to realize how deep a hole these players had to ascend from. Even if we had lost these two games, the narrative would have remained true.
Bud Mcginnes, the team’s only senior, picked up two hits and two RBIs in his final home game.

Chuck Brady, the Executive Sports Editor of the Quincy Herald Whig, wrote: 
“Catcher Bud Mcginnes tends to downplay his role as team leader of the Quincy College baseball team, but the most apparent question among those playing or attending games at Q-Stadium is, “How could we have made it without him?”
It would be nice to say that we went to UMSL and beat them in a doubleheader to end the season on a high note with every player realizing that we had accomplished something very special. Unfortunately, the 1989 baseball season was never going to be a Disney tale.

 
The only facts that I really recall about our final game day were that we lost to UMSL 6-5 and 8-4.  Chad Gooding, playing in his first college season, went 3-3 in the finale.
I understood if there were some of our players who were glad the season was over. I never heard any of my guys state that, but it had to be terribly draining for them. There’s no doubt that it was difficult at times. The term that is often used today is “grinders.” We continued to get better, although when you’re 19,20 or 21 years old it’s difficult to clearly see that at times. It’s much easier to look solely at the win-loss column.

A few people enter a marathon with the goal of winning the race. Many runners feel they have won if they finish the race. We not only finished, but we had the handicap of having to run two or three extra miles because some school officials kept pushing us back from the starting line. Yeah, we were grinders.

The true measure of our season lies in the fact that 35 years later the coach of that 1989 team can contact his former players and (I’m not sure if it’s everybody, but it might be), most of the members of the team recognize that year as meaningful. They were a central reason the Quincy College baseball program not only endured but prospered in the years following.  

I wish I could remember what was said as we met as a team at the end of that final game or the individual conversations we had in the following days.  35 years strips the exact words, but the emotions and the satisfaction of the odyssey will always remain. 

1990 Photo- RHP- Scott Gregory, RHP Jerry Burdess and LHP Mike Heinz. Mike was one of several players who was eligible to play on the 1989 squad, but stepped away when there was no coach hired in the summer or fall of '89. The QC baseball photo did not look bright at that time.

Abandoned - Chapter 10: Travel Horror

There has always been a connection between Peoria and Quincy with young men and women making the two-hour trip to attend Quincy College from Peoria and nearby towns and college students making the reversal two-hour drive from the Quincy area to attend Bradley University.

In the 1980’s especially, both colleges had young athletes from their relatively close neighbors playing on their various athletic teams. 

Quincy’s Scott Melvin played baseball at Bradley, coached by former Quincy College baseball and basketball star Dewey Kalmer. Coach Kalmer, after three years in professional baseball, returned to Quincy and became the Hawks’ head baseball coach and assistant basketball coach for 11 seasons before taking over the head baseball coaching position at Bradley.

Coach Kalmer had dozens of his players play professional baseball including Quincy's Scott Melvin, who played, coached, and scouted for the Saint Louis Cardinals organization.

Melvin later signed Quincy University senior right-handed pitcher Josh Kinney to a contract in June of 2001. The former Hawks’ star was not considered a major league prospect when he signed but surprised most observers by reaching the big leagues in 2006. He became a key member of the Cardinals’ relief corps that won the 2006 World Series.

Kinney was also profiled in the book, “Josh and Josh” (Small Towns and Big Leagues) joining his former Quincy teammate and current athletic director at now Quincy University, former big leaguer, Josh Rabe.

Ron Clark graduated from Peoria Manual H.S. and became the first baseball coach at Illinois Central College (East Peoria) from 1981-1984. He became the head coach at Quincy College in 1985 and remained the head coach for four seasons through the 1988 campaign. It was Coach Clark who encouraged twin brothers, Pete and Bud Mcginnes (also Peoria Manual graduates) to attend Quincy College beginning in the fall semester of 1986. Our starting shortstop in ’89, Jeff Swigris, was a Peoria native.
Bud played four seasons at Quincy College, graduating from Quincy in 1990 while twin brother Pete transferred to Bradley to play his senior season.

In 1987 and 1988, Bud was the starting catcher and Pete, the starting shortstop for the Hawks. The sophomores were key players on that squad. 

The Hawks baseball team was traveling on April 7, 1987 to Macomb (Il.) to play Western Illinois when a van in their traveling group rolled over, seriously injuring three players; outfielder Rich Minder, pitcher Mike Crow and Bud Mcginnes.

All three players were in intensive care at Blessing Hospital in Quincy before Mcginnes was transferred later to a Peoria hospital to be near his family. Mcginnes had a fractured kneecap and fractures of both wrists. 

 Mike Crow, from Quincy, suffered a broken collarbone, a damaged lung, bruised ribs and the second and third vertebrae in his back had been moved. 

Crow said, “The last thing I remember is us going into the ground, and then I remember waking up in the hospital and my mom and dad were standing there, just looking at me.”

Rich Minder was later transferred to St. John’s Hospital in Springfield (Il.), his hometown.

Minder, along with a broken hip, had some swelling around the brain so a hole had to be bored into the side of his head so the fluid could be drained to relieve the pressure. He has no recollection of the accident. 

Minder stated, “I was in Quincy (Blessing Hospital) for about ten days, and I don’t remember that. I stayed at St. John’s for around a week, and I don’t remember that. The first thing I remember was being transferred from St. John’s to Memorial, and that’s about 17-20 days.

 Once his hip mended, Minder started playing in a summer league in Springfield and Crow, after playing softball most of the summer, started playing baseball again when Quincy College started classes in the fall.

 “The first time I pitched was against Northeast Missouri, and it was different. I started to wonder if all the trouble I went through was worth this, but after the first couple of pitches it was fine,” Crow said. 

All three players returned for the 1988 season. Don Hargis of our ’89 squad was also a passenger in the wrecked van, but escaped with no major injuries.

The QC team canceled 12 games in their 1987 season before playing again on April 21^st against Illinois College.
         
Two weeks after we finished our 1989 season on May 2^nd, I received a call from Coach Kalmer at Bradley. His team was preparing for the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament in Wichita. He asked if his team could stop and workout at QC Stadium on their way to Wichita on May 16^th.

 I told him it would certainly be okay for his club to practice at our facility. No one had played in the stadium since May 1^st and I knew the field conditions would not be good, but they just wanted to take some batting practice, do some running, and have some of the pitchers throw lightly in the bullpen.

 After their 90-minute workout, the Bradley team went up to the North Campus and used the locker room facilities before continuing to Wichita. They left our campus around noon.

 Approximately four hours later, one of the three vans they were driving collided with a semi- trailer truck twelve miles east of Mexico City, Missouri. 

Tim Trunk, a 19-year-old pitcher from Oak Forest, Illinois, was killed and two players, Bob Becker of Belleville (Il) and David Carr of Crown Point, Indiana were seriously injured.

There were several other players in the van who were not injured. One of those players was Pete Mcginnes, who two years earlier had been a passenger in the Quincy College van that was involved in a serious accident on their way to a scheduled game.

Quincy’s Lyle Martin, a freshman player at Bradley, was also traveling in the van and was not injured.

Bradley’s athletic director canceled the team’s participation in the tournament. A chartered bus took the squad back to the Peoria campus the next day.

Abandoned - Chapter 9: QC Players- What They Had to Say 35 Years Later.

  We lost the next two doubleheaders after our first wins of the year, dropping two games on the road to a very good Division 2 program, SIU-Edwardsville, and then we lost 9-7 and 4-3 to Milliken University at home. 

SIUE, Lewis, and University of Missouri-St. Louis were Division 2 programs that had been formidable for several years. They had veteran coaches and had built strong programs, always high on the list of the better teams in the region. We had already gone 0-6 against them with six games remaining against the trio. I always thought they would be a good measuring stick for us and maybe the second time around we could play better against them.

 We had been very fortunate to escape season-ending injuries or illnesses until slightly past the halfway mark when Jim Cerneka, a freshman infielder from Belleville, Illinois was forced to leave the team with an illness.

Mark Trapp’s jaw injury robbed him of 40 percent of his season.

Bud played the entire season with two pins in his right knee, Chad Gooding had the right shoulder injury that seriously restricted his throwing ability, and Jimmy Wissel played with a life-long physical issue.

It’s uncertain how many players had nagging injuries through at least part of the season, injuries that were kept quiet until after game 46 or maybe until 35 years later. 

The “Magnificent Seven,” who played on the ’88 team and returned to play in ’89 were integral in keeping us competitive for nearly half of our opening 33 games (twelve losses of five runs or less and two wins). Shortstop Jeff Swigris and outfielder/pitcher Tony Preall played all 46 games during the ’89 season. Catcher Bud McGinnes played in 44, outfielder/pitcher Don Hargis (40), dual sport athletes, 1B/DH John Cassidy (39) and p/2B Elvis Turkovich-(38).

Pitcher Dave Mikolajczak was the only returnee who did not play a position (except for the Northern Iowa game) when we were down to nine or ten eligible players.
Freshman Joe Nardi played the most games of any newcomer (39).
Six others who had never played college baseball prior to our ’89 season individually played 25 games or more that year.

Every player who I spoke to beginning in January 2024 when we began putting together the story of the ’89 squad, was asked about his memories of that season. 
Their replies could be totally forthright – it could be something a teammate did during a game or just something funny someone said, an error or a bad pitch they made, something I exclaimed on the bench or in the van. They had free rein. And some used that freedom to expound on some topic I knew absolutely nothing about during the season.

I appreciated the complimentary comments I received (I did not print them, but won’t forget them), knowing there were probably at least one or two statements of another sort that were made in the dugout, the vans or another “players only” retreat that might have been a bit more unfavorable. 

Some player memories:

Freshman Lance Marshall: “The comraderie and those early morning workouts. Going to aerobics a couple times a week.”

Freshman Jim Wissel: “Nothing, but positive. I liked school. I remember playing against one of my high school friends when we played North Alabama. The only negative thing I remember is playing Lewis. They had runners at first and second and the hitter hit a missile at me. It was the perfect double play ball, but I let it get through me and they had a big inning,”

Freshman Mike Egenes: “Bud was a great example. We had to figure out a way to get through it. It wasn’t fun. Feels good comes later when you get into life.”

Freshman Mark Trapp: “You (Coach) told me to get a haircut. (the back of his hair stuck out). I said I didn’t have any money and you said,” ‘Have your girlfriend cut it.’  “I remember that Tony’s helmet was way oversized. There was an incident when you (Coach) argued that an opponent’s HR bounced over the fence. Finally, the umpire asked Tony and he said it did not bounce and that negated your argument.”

Sophomore Dave Mikolajczak: “I remember pitching against SIUE and leaving with the lead with a sore arm. I was really angry when I started against Illinois Wesleyan in game one and we lost badly.”

Freshman Jim Cerneka: “Rooming with Mark in Iowa when he found out his good friend had drowned. We stayed in the hotel and watched the Michigan-Illinois NCAA game. “Crocodile Rock” was always playing from our press box even during practice. All the time. You (Coach) must have loved that song.” NOTE: I liked some Elton John songs, but definitely not that one! It might have been another player who requested that song.

         Cerneka: “Bud and Tony Preall burning wood bats in the dugout to stay warm during the fall.” NOTE: Bud admits that, but remember no coach was present in the fall of ’88.

Sophomore Chad Gooding: “I remember when we were starting to practice outside. I didn’t have any cleats and Tony gave me his old ones.”

Freshman Joe Nardi: “I hit right behind Chad Gooding in the lineup several times. I never saw a guy hit so many line drives that were caught.”

Sophomore John Cassidy: “1989 was a grind. The cupboard was bare when so many guys left the program.” 

Dave Mikolajczak- “I thoroughly enjoyed the season despite the difficulties. I was happy to pitch so much. I wanted to get into the game vs. Iowa to see how I’d do but that wasn’t too disappointing. (Mark Trapp also mentioned that he wished he could have pitched against Iowa for similar reasons) And I was excited to get some ABs at Northern Iowa even though I didn’t get a hit.”
We had a great group of guys and I feel we gave a good effort the whole year even though we were undermanned. We never gave up even though it would have been easy to.”
 
Fifteen games remained on our 1989 schedule after the Milliken loss on April 16^th. We had three days of practice before hosting Northeast Missouri. With a small roster and having to use at least two or three pitchers almost every game, it was certainly advantageous to have some space between our games. Every practice day was important, and I hoped we could keep that mindset right through to the end of our season.

Tony Preall may have been our most consistent player through our opening 30 games. He was a fine defensive right fielder, a middle of the order hitter and one of our position guys who was called upon to pitch more than we anticipated.
Tony either tied for or was our team leader in eight offensive categories at season’s end.

He was from Huntington Beach, California and found his way to Quincy thanks to his uncle, Dr. John Schleppenbach, an English professor at the college.

Special thanks to Dr. Schleppenbach for his contribution on April 20^th as we swept a doubleheader with Tony leading us to our biggest offensive day of the season, winning 10-9 and 8-6. It was the most runs we had scored in a doubleheader all season. In fact, there had been a time earlier in the year when we didn’t score 18 runs in two weeks combined.

The sophomore outfielder was on fire (5-5 and reached base seven times in the Milliken series) and then followed that up with four hits including the game winner in extra innings in game one versus Northeast Missouri. He added a home run and a sacrifice fly in game two.

It was the first time all season that one of our hitters had put together a four-hit game.
“I came here on an academic scholarship, but with the intention of also playing baseball-and it’s really fun when you have a day like this,” Tony said.

Another positive team note for the Hawks was that we came from behind several times during the day. It was the first time that our offense brought us back and carried us through not only one, but two games.

We gave up a three-run homer in the top of the eighth in the first extra inning of game one but fought back to even it up on Gooding’s double, a walk to McGinnes and singles by Hargis and Cassidy. 

We won it in the ninth after Jeff Swigris singled, Nardi walked and both runners advanced on a wild pitch. Mcginnes received an intentional walk setting the stage for Preall’s game-winning single.

 Mikolajczak relieved in the seventh and went an inning plus before turning the game over to Turkovich who picked up the win. Mikolajczak then came back to throw a complete seven-inning game in the nightcap. 

 Game one also saw us have two multiple-run innings, which had been an infrequent occurrence most of the season. We picked up four unearned runs in the third on an error, Preall’s single and doubles by Cassidy and freshman Mike Egenes.

Our 15-hit outburst in game one was paced by Preall’s four singles, Gooding’s three hits (including a line drive homer) with Cassidy (4 RBIs), Egenes and Swigris contributing two hits each.

We had five freshmen play in the first game including three in the starting lineup (Nardi, Lance Marshall, and Egenes). Freshman Dave Schuering contributed a pinch hit and Jim Wissel played second base when Turkovich went to the mound.

Jim Wissel played in 26 games during our ’89 season. The Overland Park (Ks.) native was born with bilateral congenital hip dysplasia which wasn’t immediately discovered. He had surgeries as a baby to fix his hips.

As a result, his leg lengths did not match so he had to wear a shoe lift and had an unusual gait, but it didn’t stop him from being an active kid, playing multiple sports, but avoiding tackle-football.

Jim tore a knee ligament on a double play pivot during the beginning of summer baseball following his sophomore year of high school.

Eventually, his hip joints started to wear out and he had to sit out the summer baseball season between high school and college due to arthritic inflammation and continual discomfort.

Jim was able to play his freshman year at QC, but the bone-on-bone arthritic pain was constant, and Jim made the decision after the season to no longer attempt to play college baseball.

During the summer between his sophomore and junior years at QC, he had major reconstructive surgery on his right hip. The surgery was very difficult, and the recovery period was much longer than anticipated.

Jim had to rent an off-campus house during his junior year because he was not able to navigate the stairs in the dormitory. 

Game two featured another big inning for our club, scoring six times in the fifth, three of them coming on Preall’s second home run of the year.   

 
Mikolacjzak was two outs away from a shutout before the Bulldogs rallied behind a mixture of hits and walks and cut our 8-0 lead to 8-6 with men on second and third before we finally got the third out on a ground ball, capping off a day of offense we hadn’t generated all season.

The two games were unlike any of the others we had played during the ’89 season. We weren’t playing against one of the better teams on our schedule, but then again, we were the club starting the day, 2-29.

There were numerous signs throughout the day that we had improved, especially in our last eight games. We were down by three in extra innings and came back to tie and then win it in the ninth. We gave up 13 hits but picked up 15. Preall had the big-time game, but four other hitters combined for nine hits.

We gave up 75 percent of our 8-0 lead in game two, but still held on and got the final out to win 8-6. 

I think with days like this some might want to analyze and break down all the aspects of 16 innings of baseball. There were certainly a couple of guys who had their best games of the season, but we were simply getting better overall. We still had over a dozen games remaining and I just wanted to continue improving in all areas of the game. 

We didn’t set any won-loss goals at the beginning of the season, and we weren’t going to do it now.  I hoped that we could be more competitive against the teams we had lost to the first time around. It would be nice to win some more games, but the games were going to start running closer together (practice time would be cut back) and there were plenty of tough games ahead.

 We were nearing the time when you hope your team can finish the season on a high note.

That is something you never forget. This ball is memorable for one of our '89 infielders, Jim Wissel- his first collegiate baseball hit on March 28, 1989 vs. North Alabama

Abandoned - Chapter 8: It’s Good to be Back Home

 

Looking at all the individual players that made up our ’89 team and evaluating all our players and positions, only a few players had a skill that clearly showed above their teammates.  What we did have enabled us to compete in some of the games during the first half of the season and especially the IW game. We clearly had a group of guys that, despite some team deficiencies, did their best each time out there.

I realize that sounds like coach-speak again, something to somehow ease the disappointment of loss after loss after loss, but it’s the truth. We never had a guy that didn’t run out routine ground balls, run half speed after a ball defensively, give away at bats using no preparation or bench jockeys. We were prepared for each game. We knew how to do the right things-we just couldn’t execute them for a complete game.
 

I just didn’t see us having a lot of multiple run innings unless we were helped by the opposing pitcher’s wildness and/or some errors. On our defensive end, we had to try and make our games, mostly two-pitcher games. We were really hurt with all those back-back games that just drained our pitching staff. We used 12 pitchers during the season with four or more appearances. Eight of them made starting appearances. Most of our guys were going to have trouble going through an opposing lineup cleanly twice. 

We were not a good overall fielding team with some of that linked to our pitching. The opponents put a ton of balls in play. We were not going to strike out 8-9 guys a game. We averaged less than three.

I thought of these factors well before statistics and analytics became major factors in game preparation and actual in-game decisions. This was simply an evaluation exercise backed up by a few stats that might have some value.

What could I do to put us in the best position to win?  We would be home more often in our final 21 games. Our schedule, although not easy-still Bradley twice, SIU- Edwardsville four times, Lewis again, who had beaten us twice in Quincy would be tough. Iowa Wesleyan had defeated us in a single game, Missouri-Saint Louis had beaten us twice in our opening games of the year and our remaining opponents’ skill levels were unknown.  

The returning guys from the 1988 team plus Nardi, Trapp and Gooding would have to come up big and the other youngsters had to help. 

It was good to be back at QC stadium again, not just for a workout but preparing for the upcoming doubleheader versus MacMurray College. We hadn’t played a game there in three weeks,

                         
 

MacMurray College vs. Quincy College (DH)

 April 12, 1989

Mark Trapp started and gave up a solo homer in the first but threw shutout ball in the second and third. 

MacMurray’s opening hitter led off the fourth with a rocket up the middle that hit Mark in the jaw. It was a vicious line drive and I think we all expected the worst when we raced out to the mound.  There were no missing teeth or blood and no evidence on the outside of an injury.

Mark wanted to keep on pitching. We never had a trainer at our home or away games, and none had traveled with MacMurray. In fact, many of the places where we played did not have a trainer or medical staff present. Fortunately, the protocol of having qualified trainers present has dramatically improved over the years. Mark tried to throw a practice pitch or two, but we all agreed that he needed to go to an emergency room for an exam and a probable x-ray.

Our freshman second baseman, Jim Wissel, drove Mark to a local hospital where after an x-ray and an examination he was told he did not have a fractured jaw. Two weeks later, the freshman pitcher was still unable to eat and had lost at least 15 pounds since the McMurray game. 

A call home to his mother led them on a trip to Iowa City for an examination and a different opinion of his X-ray surfaced. He indeed had a fractured jaw and underwent surgery almost immediately. Mark recalls that his jaw was not wired shut but wired through all his teeth somehow.

Don Hargis came into the game to relieve Mark and we held MacMurray scoreless in the fourth. McGinnes hit a solo home run for us in the bottom of the inning and we pushed across another one to take a 2-1 lead.

MacMurray scored one in the fifth to tie, but we took a 3-2 lead on a bases loaded walk but handed it back in the sixth on a botched relay throw.

The score was tied at three when we came to bat in the bottom of the seventh.
It had developed into the type of game that I thought several days earlier gave us the best chance to win. We had used only two pitchers. We had manufactured a couple of runs, one at a time and despite the error on the outfield relay, we had been adequate defensively. 

 Bud led off the bottom of the seventh and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one in a QC uniform that was hoping that our senior catcher would hit one out and give us that first win.

“Everybody on the bench was telling me to hit one out to make it easier on them, but all I was thinking about was hitting the ball in the gap and getting on base. When the count went to 2-1, I was looking for something up and in and I got it,” Bud told a sports reporter from the Quincy Herald Whig.

Bud continued, “I knew I hit the ball good, but I don’t think I realized what it all meant until I rounded first base. All of a sudden, I realized I had hit a home run to win our first game of the year. I can’t make up my mind if I want to keep the ball or give it to Coach.”

Bud did the right thing. He kept it. The senior from Peoria had more than his share of difficult moments during his baseball career at Quincy and no one could have wished a better ending than having Bud hit a walk-off to win our first game of the season.

He still ran with a slight limp from a fractured kneecap suffered two years earlier (the pins remain in his knee in 2024), but somehow was able to catch 44 games for us during the 1989 season. The 1987 injury may have hampered his straight-ahead speed, but he never gave the appearance that it ever affected his footwork behind the plate. Along with his solid ability to block pitches and getting his feet in the proper position to throw accurately on stolen base attempts, Bud had an extraordinary ability to execute a play that few catchers at any level can make.

Several times during the year a batter failed on a bunt attempt, fouling a short pop up back toward the screen. Bud had the instincts to find the ball instantly and determine where it was going to land. He took 4-5 quick steps and would slide, catching the ball a foot or two off the ground and stopping several feet short of the backstop.

You often see an outfielder making a sliding catch during a game, but it’s quite rare to see a catcher, who has only a second or two to react, with the baseball instincts and physical skills to make that play.

Randy Martz, the former Cubs and White Sox pitcher, was the head coach of MacMurray College. Randy made his MLB debut in August 1983 and went 17-19 with a 3.78 ERA in his three-year big-league career.

After game one Randy asked me if that was our first win that season. He seemed a bit surprised. Evidently, he probably heard one of his players or one of our kids say something and when he saw the celebration at home plate, he knew it represented more than just a game-winning home run. 

Randy was a good person and late in ’89 or early ‘90 he drove down to our campus and did an autograph signing at a baseball card show held in our athletic center.
Randy was the head coach at MacMurray from 1987-1990. In ‘91 he became the head coach at Lewis and Clark Community College and remained there until his retirement in 2021.

The blueprint of our first win that I had sketched out a few days earlier lasted exactly one game.  I was proven luckier than any kind of clairvoyant strategist and that was okay with me as we hung on to win the second game after giving up a 6-0 lead after two and a 9-2 advantage after four innings. Mick started and went four innings.  Freshman Mike Egenes threw the fifth and Turk pitched the sixth with MacMurray picking up three runs in each of the innings and narrowing the lead to 11-8.

The Highlanders wouldn’t stop and scored twice in the seventh and had runners on the corners with one out. Third baseman Joe Nardi made a nice play defensively to his left and threw the potential tying run out at the plate. Don Hargis, who had won the first game, walked the bases full and Turk came back into the game and got a ground ball out for a 11-10 win for the Hawks. We had given up 14 hits and ten runs but hung on for the sweep.

Don Crim was the sports editor of the Herald Whig and was there for both games. I’m sure Don was there to write about our 0-25 start and rightly so- it was local sports news and getting closer to becoming national sports news.The Herald Whig had treated us very fairly during the entire season and that wouldn’t have been the case in some other locales. 

Don, Chuck Brady, and David Adam recognized the situation the players had been placed in and just wrote about the games with the knowledge of the factors involved.
Don had done his homework and knew much more than I did about college baseball streaks and records as I found out the day after our sweep.

Don wrote, “QC, which had lost 27 straight games dating back to last season, is no longer in danger of setting the NCAA mark for most consecutive defeats. The record is 37 for one season and 48 spread over two.”

The Herald Whig headline read, ‘This is no laughing matter’, quoting the QC coach.
Don also wrote, “Pransky knew he was behind in the count when he accepted the job last December. QC officials sent out puzzling signals by waiting seven months before naming a replacement for Ron Clark, who resigned last spring.

Doubting the school’s commitment to the sport, players left in droves. Pransky inherited a team consisting of just 19 players, and 16 of them freshmen or sophomores. Only McGinnes, the team’s lone senior, accumulated any real playing time in 1988.”

Once I took the coaching position, the players and I never talked again about the 1988 season and what came after until the opening three months of 2024, 35 years later. 

 RHP and CF, Don Hargis after his QC playng career. Don played in both '88 and '89.

Abandoned - Chapter 7 Losing Sucks

  You probably did not see this one coming. Maybe this serves a multiple purpose and gets away from the continual calming message of we want to keep working to get better, keep on with trying to do the right things even if we don’t get the hopeful results, and not get bogged down with won-loss records.

Secondly, I wanted to make it clear, crystal clear, that even though I knew the correct path and a plan was in place, the losses don’t disappear, and a new day does not automatically bring hope. Nope. They hit you right in the gut over and over (slight pause) and repeat while you wait for a remedy (a win). You can’t shake what has already happened. Losing takes your spirit and like a tug-of-war battle, you are on the team with the skinny 13-year-olds and you’re pulling against a bunch of Penn State defensive linemen.

 I was not a gracious loser as a young athlete. I took losses very hard, maybe because the teams I played for didn’t lose often. I don’t think I ever played on a youth league team that had a losing record. 

Little League, Babe Ruth and American Legion baseball and high school football and basketball- it was one of those cycles of good athletes who fell in the same age group who had a lot of success. I didn’t show any defeatist emotions on the court or the field. I just took those painful defeats home with me.

My behavior after a loss when I was a little guy, maybe six or seven years old, did not differ before team sports were part of my life. My dad would get the better of me in a card game, and I’d quit and run off. If we visited a relative’s house, I took a cardboard box with my plastic bowling ball and pins and set them up in the largest room available. I never threw the pins at anyone when I lost, but I did throw them back in the box with as much force as a first grader could generate and the plastic bowling ball followed.

The losses as a teenager brought pouting to the forefront. My modus operandi was quite simple. I went home and said nothing or gave replies as short as possible to everyone. Any question directed my way usually received a “yeah”, “no”. or “I don’t care.”

I was fortunate to have very good coaches as a young player. Most of them were teachers in our school district and even though some of them were not familiar with all the x’s and o’s, they were good people who never did anything to embarrass us or themselves. They never stopped teaching and they were wonderful role models.
I saw their actions every day and took it for granted. Occasionally, we’d see an opposing coach who didn’t seem to enjoy coaching and thus his players didn’t seem to be having much fun. I appreciated my coaches, but it took years to fully understand the ultimate effect they had on me.

Several of my players who I spoke to in 2024 remembered some games and individual mistakes that left them disappointed and embarrassed back in that ’89 season. Some were glad that we had our locker room concourse hidden behind our dugout at Q-Stadium that provided a good spot to let off some steam during inning breaks or between games.

I wasn’t blind to their emotions in 1989. I understood the feeling. I hated losing. It was repugnant. It was hellish, but it wasn’t strangling me so badly that I couldn’t remain optimistic. I had it much easier than my players. I knew what I was stepping into and that I could make it better. I had done it before, but admittingly the QC baseball program was unique in the fact it was nearly demolished, bull-dozed to the ground in less than seven months.

There are not many collegiate programs that are torn down to their roots in such a short amount of time unless they’ve committed serious infractions. 

That was not the case in Quincy, but this might have been more infuriating. These young men had done nothing wrong, and they had only two choices if they wanted to attend Quincy College- not play baseball at all or play in 1989 and probably lose a ton of games. 

Some people might think if those young players who chose option two knew they were going to be 0-25 and lose one game, 32-0, they may have chosen option one instead. After spending a season with them, I don’t think they would alter their decision. 

I’ve never been a proponent of all the cliches and aphorisms about winning and losing: 

“Winners never quit, and quitters never win,” 
“We wanted it more than they did.”
“We had a greater will to win.” 
“Losing builds character.”

And 5,000 more adages and trite phrases are on posters, bumper stickers, etc. 
 I never was a one size fits all person. I think you must coach your personality, instead of creating a metamorphosis every time the situation changes. If a coach at any level wants to quote Vince Lombardi, Mike Krzyzewski, or Dusty Baker to motivate his players, that’s cool. Go ahead. It’s just not me.

What I did learn and thought about often was some of the wisdom that was directly delivered to me through the years by coaches who I considered my mentors. 

I was eating at a fast-food restaurant in the spring of 2024. It was late morning and there was a table with two youngsters in baseball uniforms, probably 13 or 14 years old, and one adult. They were in town for a youth tournament at a state-of-the-art baseball complex that hosts these travel teams.

The kids were wiping away the crumbs and taking their final sips of what appeared to be a 128-ounce bucket of soda when I walked by and said hello, asked if they were participating in the tournament and wished them good luck. They said thanks and as I started to move away, I said, “Have some fun.”

That was a trigger for the coach/dad who told me, “We didn’t come here to have fun. We came to take home some hardware.” Case closed.

In my 2024 conversations with my 1989 players, many of them including Jim Wissel, Mike Egenes, Mark Trapp, Joe Nardi, Jeff Swigris, and John Cassidy told me about coaching their own children and kids of close friends in sports. Some of those ex- Hawks’ players coached baseball, but lacrosse, soccer, softball, and football were also on the list.

I never saw them directing their players from the dugout or the third base coaching box, but I’m confident these ex-players were fine coaches and unlike the coach/dad in the restaurant, not overly concerned about taking home hardware. If they coached their personality, then the kids would have learned a lot and had fun.

Some ex-players even told me they talked about the Iowa loss and framed it as a teaching moment with their youth league teams. 

 I used to adamantly say that coaching baseball is always about development until you reach the big leagues where you must win. There’s not a lot of front office patience and major league organizations don’t want to hear about the “five-year plan” you have. The monopoly money in play adds to the decision-makers’ inability to tolerate delays in putting a winning team on the field.

Minor leagues are a developmental platform. Winning is a part of the development process that could eventually take a young man to the big leagues, but it’s only a part of the process.

There is a strong aroma of “need to win” with baseball programs in major and probably mid-major conferences. You’re still developing, but now you’re dealing with boosters, alumni, and athletic directors and they can carry some weight. 

I had no pressure in 1989. I wasn’t going to get fired for starting out 0-25. I don’t think many members of our administration cared one iota.  Our daily paper always published a report of our games and there were a few player profiles, but any criticisms that any campus personnel had must have been behind closed doors. 
I made an unspoken comparison of some professional organizations who just wanted to put a team on the field. They were not going to sign any free agents or give long-term contracts to their best players-just trade them for “prospects”. There would be no stadium repairs and prices of game tickets would not be reduced. In other words, they would do anything possible to create a scenario that would allow them to move to a new city of riches.

The QC baseball program was not going to be eliminated or moved, but there would be little help provided. College officials allowed players to leave without concern and provided minimal support to those who remained. The stadium was not going to undergo any renovations in the foreseeable future. The coming times would be determined by what we did on the field and that started with how we performed in 1989. We had to construct our own fate.

We were developing, we were striving to get better by doing the right things and, oops, we’re right back to paragraph one and the chapter’s title. Losing still sucks. I couldn’t deny it, but we also couldn’t let it shape every aspect of each player’s life. They were college students with other concerns; academics, financial/tuition worries, a girlfriend 500 miles away and countless other apprehensions. 

We were still going to do the right things and unlike dad/coach, we didn’t go to Iowa, SIU-Carbondale, Illinois Wesleyan, and the other stops to take home some hardware. We went to play hard and if we returned with one loss or two, we’d still come back with something learned.  

Note: It’s not mentioned in earlier chapters, but Quincy College baseball was not in a conference. We had a Division 2 classification, but played an independent schedule which literally meant we could play any of the three division levels and NAIA schools.
Quincy University was admitted to the Great Lakes Valley Conference in 1994. The value of being in a conference is multi-fold with one of the positives being that half (give or take a game or two) of your seasonal schedule is already in place each year. Conference titles, conference playoffs, and added incentives for universities to improve facilities are just a few of the upsides.

There’s still enough space in the schedule to play traditional rivals, some Division 1 schools and/or travel south for some early-season games (talk to me about that last example- a ridiculous staple of college baseball).

The addition of the Quincy Gems to the Central Illinois Collegiate League (CICL) in 1996 was a tremendous baseball boost for the community. They drew 1,500-2,000 fans for many of their home games, added new dugouts, and put in seats and decks in foul territories for parties. They upgraded the press box, and each year made another improvement.

When I was working on our 1990 schedule, I called three of the colleges who had defeated us in doubleheaders at their home fields in ’89. Surprisingly, none of the three schools had “any open spots on their schedule.”

Why would you not want to play a doubleheader versus a program that you beat relatively easily the year before?

I didn’t ask that, but I had some beliefs, and they weren’t about open spots on their schedule

1. Any opposing coach who had at least a moderate level of observation skills could tell, despite the scores and the number of losses, that our players knew how to play, but the execution was well below a standard Division 2 program in 1989
2. Any opposing coach should have understood that I knew what I was doing. I had read the book, and I knew how this was going to come out in the end. I’m not saying that anybody should have feared us, but there was no way we were not going to be more competitive soon. These opposing teams needed assurances they were going to come in and sweep us and those guarantees would not be present any longer.
3. I must be fair. Maybe one or all three did have scheduling issues that prevented them from coming over and playing us. Maybe.

Abandoned - Chapter 6: The Basement

 We had our first extended break after losing to Western Illinois. We had not had one game postponed all season long, but it looked like that streak would end on an early Sunday morning, when we fell back into winter weather. 

 We awoke that morning to a wet, low 30’s day with a forecast that called for the same conditions all day. There was constant precipitation bouncing back between light rain, flurries, some snow, and repeat. The forecast was for a continuation throughout the entire day. 

In those years, along with our local forecasters, we relied on “The Weather Channel” for most of our updated weather. I watched it so often through the years that I knew the entire Weather Channel cast by name even before they flashed it at the bottom of the screen. 

 I sat in my north campus office and it was slightly past eight a.m. I made a call to the Illinois Wesleyan coach. We were scheduled to leave campus in an hour. All the forecasts we had seen for the northern and central portions of our state were similar, temperatures under 40 degrees and only intermittent breaks in precipitation.

We could not have played a game in Quincy that day, and I felt that the same decision would be reached in Bloomington, home of Illinois Wesleyan. Home team coaches must make the decision to make that cancellation call as soon as possible because of the travel involved, not only by the opposing teams, but umpires and fans/parents also. There are expenses involved so decisions must be made as soon as possible. 
 A college head coach’s decision is not always easy and usually it’s his call and not the head of a ground crew, especially when you don’t have one. The absence of any field maintenance people is not uncommon, especially on a Sunday. Welcome to college baseball, especially in the late 80’s. 

“We’re fine here. We’ll get the games in with no problem,” said their head coach. I told him what our conditions were and what I had seen and heard about their location.
 He simply repeated that we were playing and all would be just fine. I think I heard him licking his lips.

We packed the vans with everyone wearing their heavy brown jackets and proceeded to make the 175-mile trip. Our northeast journey showed no sign of improving weather when we pulled into the parking lot encasing their field. A pickup truck was dragging the field with mud spitting out from the plow and multiple players were sweeping water and throwing down bags of drying material. It was in the 30’s and in my estimation the conditions were not playable.

I knew when I spoke to the coach before we left Quincy why we were going to play regardless. We were 0-23. I rarely looked at an opponent’s record before we played them. That’s not a scouting report. It doesn’t tell you when they hit and run or the pickoff plays, they use. It’s not a guarantee if you’re going to win or lose, but 0-23 does stick out there a bit and that’s why we were there.

I didn’t express any anger to their coach, but it was obvious that many players on both teams were not thrilled about playing in those conditions. Neither was I.
I strongly suggested, “Coach, why don’t we just play a single nine inning game? The weather and conditions obviously are not going to get better. I think the players on both teams, umpires and even fans (90 percent of them were parents and sitting in their cars) might manage to get through one game, but playing two games is sort of ridiculous.  The sun’s not going to come out and we could get everybody out of here a couple hours sooner. This field is only going to get worse as the day goes on.”

Quincy College at Illinois Wesleyan (DH)

Sunday, April 9th

That request was met with indignation. He replied, “We’re going to play two. Our guys are ready, the umpires are ready, and we’ll start on time.” 

I think a vote of his players and the umpires would have shown the majority on the side of, “Can you believe we are playing baseball in this crap?”

 
So, we played and got drilled in game one, 17-1. They scored 12 runs in the third and we had another game finish with the ten-run rule after five innings. 

Dave Schuering, a freshman catcher from Quincy Notre Dame High School, pitched the fourth inning for us. Schuering had never pitched before and when Bud went out to the mound he asked, “What pitches do you have?” Dave could only reply that he had one- a fastball. He fastballed (mid 70’s) his way through the inning allowing a single run.

The weather didn’t get any better and the infield surface kept getting worse despite frequent attempts to keep the baselines dry. 

Although game one had only gone five innings, there was no time saved because the third inning seemed like it took an hour by itself.

We’re now 0-24 and some of our players went to the vans between games to escape the chill, at least for a few minutes. The Illinois Wesleyan guys took shelter also, but somehow you don’t feel the refrigerator-like cold as much when you’ve put one “W” in the book and are certain that number two is on its way. Everything was going just the way their coach had expected-some brutal game conditions, but they’d pick up two easy wins. 

It didn’t work out exactly the way he planned it. Tony Preall started and got us through three innings trailing just 1-0. Then, for the first time that season, we started to have some fun baseball- game style.

We picked up two runs in the fourth when John Cassidy walked, Don Hargis was hit by a pitch and Nardi walked. Chad Gooding hit into a double play with Cassidy scoring, but freshman Lance Marshall followed with a two-out, RBI double. Turkovich shut them down in the fourth, fifth and sixth. 

 We picked up two more runs in the seventh when Turk led off with a single and advanced on a wild pitch. Brian Mullen grounded out, but Jeff Swigris singled and Mcginnes hit a sacrifice fly to score Turk. Preall hit a triple to bring Swigris home and we took a 4-1 lead into the bottom of the seventh.

Jeff Swigris was our starting shortstop in all 25 games we had played so far. The sophomore from Peoria, Illinois hit .261 and played in 23 games for the ’88 squad.
One of his best freshman memories was playing one of the Kansas City Royals rookie squads in Florida during March spring training.

Jeff recalled, “I did get a hit off Gene Garber and the next inning robbed Jamie Quirk of a hit up the middle. Garber needed to get some work in.” Garber and Quirk were established big leaguers getting some work done against the minor league kids.
The 1988 Hawks went to Florida as part of their southern spring trip and earned a 4-4 tie with the Royals’ rookie club in a game that ended after nine innings by a prior agreement. 

Jeff was also a fine basketball player with some Division 3 opportunities out of high school but decided on attending Quincy to play baseball. Once on campus, he walked on the basketball squad and played a year before turning to baseball full-time.
Jeff and I both remembered his first college home run during the early part of the ’89 season. We lost a doubleheader at Southeast Missouri. We only scored a total of three runs that day and late in one of the games Jeff hit a solo homer. I saw every step of his trip around the bases and Jeff readily admits it was a slow trot, but it wasn’t a showboat maneuver. 

 “I never hit a home run in college before and I honestly didn’t know how fast I was supposed to go,” our shortstop recalls.

 I had only been with our players for three months, but I knew Jeff well enough to realize he wouldn’t intentionally bring any attention to himself. Evidently Southeast Missouri’s shortstop and third baseman didn’t see it the same way and had a few comments to make as Jeff passed by. 

Jeff was a very dedicated, always thinking, an intense athlete who I thought at times may have been carrying too much internal pressure, but he never let it affect his baseball personality or behavior. He was a young man who worked hard in every aspect of the game. Jeff was a very intelligent player and an excellent student (honors). He was one of those returning players who kept the ’89 team from disassembling through the most difficult times of the no-coach period.

 
Now we were three outs away from that first win of 1989. We were enthusiastic as we went out for the bottom of the seventh, but I don’t think anyone lost sight of what needed to be done. It wasn’t a fluke that we were in this position. We simply played six complete innings of good baseball. Tony and Elvis pitched well, we made all the basic plays defensively and manufactured some runs with some clutch hitting.
I never would have said this to any of the players, but I know the thought came to my mind that if we were able to shut them down in the seventh and pick up this win, there would be at least a bit of poetic justice involved considering the day-long thought process and behavior of the opposing manager. We shouldn’t have even been on the field that afternoon, but here we were after a 17-1 defeat going back out and playing very well.

Illinois Wesleyan’s first hitter in the seventh tripled off Turk. There was an error, followed by a fly out. With runners on the corners, the next IWU hitter doubled, driving in two runs, and making the score 4-3. 

I brought freshman righthander Mark Trapp into the game. Mark got the next hitter to fly to left and we were one out away. He went 2-2 on the second guy he faced and got a ground ball to the left side, slightly off to Swig’s backhand. It wasn’t routine, but it was a play that he had made before. Just knocking it down would prevent the runner at second from scoring.

The infielders were now playing on a field of caked mud and this ground ball hit one of those congestions of hardened soil and caromed up and away from Jeff and made it out to left field. Tie game. The guys were speechless, and I saw the disappointment on the field and on our bench. I hope that I kept mine hidden, but it was heart-breaking. It might have been the worst I had ever felt on a baseball field up to that time. 

The next two hitters singled, and we lost 5-4.

Over 30 years later, Swigris remembers, “Devastated. It crushed me. My dad was at the game, and I just went home with him, not back to school until the next day.”

 Jeff had no play on that ball. Once it hit the mud pile, he had no chance. Every one of his teammates knew that.

 When I spoke to many of the ’89 team members, their first memory of the worst moment of the season was the doubleheader at the University of Iowa. Losing 32-0 will stick with you. A parent of one of our players asked their son if we played Iowa in baseball or football that day. I guess it was meant more as a joke, but it was a very difficult day.

I think if those guys look at the ‘89 season in complete detail, the Iowa game will always be recognizable, but I’ll always believe that the Illinois Wesleyan game was easily the most difficult one to swallow. I kept thinking, ‘What else can these young men go through?’ 

I had hoped only a week earlier that they would all stick together through a rough time (Iowa). Seven days later they got punched in the gut again.

The defeats at Illinois Wesleyan were the nadir of the season for the 1989 Hawks.

All we could do now was prepare for the home games vs. MacMurray on Wednesday, April 12^th. We had to keep moving onward.  Our last home game had been March 19th.

1990 roster, left to right- RHP Jerry Burdess, OF/RHP Don Hargis (Don also was on the '88 and '89 teams) and OF Eric Finney