'One more reason why baseball is awesome'
May 26, 2016
The Maple City Glen Lake and Bellaire baseball teams found themselves confined to their dugouts Wednesday afternoon as rain clouded an otherwise typical late-spring doubleheader.
Typically "awesome," that is.
The following came from Glen Lake coach Kris Herman explaining another reason "why baseball is awesome." We'd contend fun stories like this say a lot about not only baseball, but high school sports as a whole.
The teams were restricted to their dugouts by rain and thunder for 45 minutes when ...
" ... our guys decided to sing “International Harvester” at the top of their lungs while the Bellaire players just looked at us like deer in headlights, but they were smiling. We proceeded to play euchre (baseball players must always carry cards … it’s an unwritten rule in baseball culture), and then we heard a Bellaire player yell “heads up” as a ball bounced into our dugout. On the ball was a tic-tac-toe board and a written message that said, 'You First.'
"The whole team gathered around the ball to argue about strategy, and when we threw the ball back, their whole team did the same thing. It was absolutely hilarious. A ball being thrown back and forth through a rain delay, one team huddling around the ball when they had it and arguing about what they were going to do, the other team staring at them likes seals waiting for a fish."
The two teams were starting up a different game when the delay ended.
"Good stuff …THAT’S the kind of thing that people don’t usually hear about that makes baseball awesome."
Moment: Lake Orion Clinches on Walk-Off
April 27, 2020
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
When Nick Dunstan singled up the middle to drive in Joe Barnes in the bottom of the seventh inning of the 2007 Division 1 Final, he sent Lake Orion past Farmington 4-3 to clinch what remains the Dragons’ only MHSAA championship in the sport.
That alone makes for a good story. But there’s another little hook as well.
Lake Orion had come back from a 3-1 deficit, tying the score in the fifth inning as Barnes crossed the plate for the second of his three runs on the day. After giving up three runs over the first three innings, Dragons pitcher Josh Deeg held Farmington scoreless over the final four, setting up his teammates to score the walk-off winner.
As for another good story, here’s the rest. That game-winning single came off Farmington reliever Cam Fowler, who moved over from shortstop to start the sixth inning. Dunstan’s single was the only hit Fowler gave up over the final two innings.
The ending surely stung for Farmington, which was making its first and still only Finals appearance in the sport. But Fowler, just a sophomore that season, bounced back in a big way although that afternoon marked his last high school baseball game.
Three years later, Fowler was a first-round pick by the NHL’s Anaheim Ducks, and he made his debut as an 18-year-old the next season. He’s played a decade with the Ducks, making the NHL All-Star Game in 2017 and also playing on the U.S. Olympic team in 2014.
Barnes went on to play baseball at Grand Rapids Community College and South Carolina-Upstate, and Deeg played at Xavier and then Madonna.
Click for coverage of the game from the Lake Orion Review and watch the game winner below from the MHSAA Network.
PHOTO: Lake Orion's Nick Dunstan fires a throw across the infield from his spot at third base during the 2007 Finals weekend.