Thursday, May 1, 2014
A history of Bearcat Baseball
When New Richmond and Wingate consolidated in 1953, the two old adversaries became Coal Creek Central. The new school was housed in a large Quonset style building between the two towns. The baseball field was built on the east side of the school property. Rick Haas remembers that they also ran track on the baseball field with one turn being at home plate. They held the field events in the outfield. Coal Creek Central won three straight County Baseball Championship in 1963, 1964, and 1965.
The Bearcats baseball teams were coached by Roger Newnum who was a member of the first class to go all four years at CCC. Roger played baseball, basketball and ran track while he was a Bearcat and graduated in 1957. He returned to his alma mater after graduating from Ball State and spending two years teaching and coaching at Ben Davis. He coached baseball for three years at Coal Creek and won the Montgomery County baseball championship each year and finished with a glossy 32-6 record. Roger also coached a championship 8th basketball team in 1963 and was Assistant to Pat McDowell when CCC won its first County Crown in 1965. That was the year Coach McDowell told the boys that he would walk home from Crawfordsville if they won the County. They won and he walked. (Fourteen miles on a cold, snowy, January night.) Roger Newnum finished his baseball coaching stint at CCC with a glossy 32-6 record.
The Bearcats had many good players, but four really stand out. Dick Inskeep was the star pitcher in 1963. He had a 5-1 record, pitching 37 innings and recording 28 strikeouts. He was the MVP of the County that year. Larry Lidester did the pitching in 1964 and had a record of 9-1. He also led the team in hitting with a .529 average. He returned for his senior year in 1965 and pitched 86 1/3 innings striking out 91 batters; he had a sparkling ERA of 1.62. Lidester had a record of 11-2 that year and was MVP of the County. Rick Haas led the team in hitting as a freshman with a .416 batting average and went on to letter all four years in baseball. He also lettered all four years in football, basketball and track, giving him 16 letters for his high school career.
Dick Shull was one of the best athletes to play baseball and basketball at Coal Creek Central. He was a 1959 graduate at CCC and finished in the top five leading scorers in the County in basketball with 1317 points for his career; he signed a professional baseball contract with the White Sox after a two year stint in the Army. While in the army, Dick’s team won the 3rd Army tournament at the Redstone Arsenal. He was assigned to the Class A Clinton, Iowa farm team for the Sox. One day after going 2-4 with a single and a double, he told his coach he was going home. He told me the other day, “Bill, I was just a homesick farm boy and wanted to come back home to the farm.” Dick later went into law enforcement and spent 33 years serving the people of Indiana.
Several other Coal Creek Central baseball players and one coach are worthy of note. After talking to and corresponding with several former players, the name Byron Alexander kept coming up. Byron Alexander graduated from New Richmond HS in the late 20s and simply dedicated his life to Coal Creek Township and their baseball program. He coached many of the younger teams, built baseball fields and umpired at every level except the majors. He was on his way there when a war injury made it impossible for him to move around the way an umpire has to. One of his players, Mike Spencer told me that Byron worked his players hard in all phases of the game. They sometimes practiced 2 ½ hours and when it was too wet to practice, he took them inside for “skull sessions” and worked on play situations. He was the one man who was instrumental in building the Coal Creek Central baseball program. He later became the township trustee and was the person responsible for getting CCC a first class commission.
Other players who were outstanding in the Red and Black were Rollie Hackerd who once turned and unassisted triple play against New Ross. Rollie was and outstanding pitcher and shortstop. Mike Bridge was one of the best players to ever patrol the outfield in the County. Blessed with great speed and an outstanding arm, he chased down every ball; according to Coal Creek baseball man “Slick” Miller, nobody ever ran on Mike Bridge. Miller also had high praise for Jim Allen, Mike Spencer and Randy Fenters who along with Dick Inskeep, played on a Pony League Championship team coached by Byron Alexander.
The Pony League picture below shows some of the early Bearcat stars. Row 1--Cecil Bailey, Row 2--Dick Inskeep, Jim Allen, Mike Spencer, Dennis Crosby, And Randy Fenters. Row 3--Mike Bridge, John Bacon, Coach Byron Alexander, Ron Minick, and Rollie Hackerd.
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