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 2nd)'That’s a very early closing date for most college programs.
The cynic in me saw the March 13th opener and a May 2nd 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.
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