Warren sharing stories for decade with Top Coach Podcast

BY STEVE KRAH
http://www.IndianaRBI.com

“Every coach has a story.”
It’s a line that comes early on the Top Coach Podcast hosted by Jack Warren.
“If we’re able to listen to what people are saying, everybody’s got something to say,” says Warren, who published his first episode in 2013 (with then-Indiana University head coach Tracy Smith) and No. 421 Jan. 30, 2023 (with State University of New York-Oswego’s Scott Landers). “I love to hear people’s stories.”
Mostly baseball interviews though he has featured other sports (including a talk with Jeffersonville, Ind., High School coach Danny Struck), the podcast features conversations with coaches at all levels. The focus is not X’s and O’s, but the relatable stories they tell.
“The absolute best way to learn — bar none — is a good story,” says Warren. “If I can get someone to tell a memorable story I’ve done my job.
“Who’s got something to say to other coaches to instruct, encourage and edify them? Bottom line: If someone’s got a compelling story, I want to tell it and I want to hear it.”
Discussions are not about bunt defense or gripping the curve, but things like organization, management, communication as well as career and staff development.
Over the years, Warren began consulting and career coaching.
“I’ve picked the brains of 1,000-plus coaches,” says Warren, who advises youth coaches to beware of money issues.
“If you go into college coaching right now you better hope you don’t have a lot of debt so it’s not something you’ve got to worry about,” says Warren. “You’ll be working 60-70 hours a week with the baseball team.”
Warren coached at the high school and youth levels in Indiana, Illinois (including Normal’s Calvary Christian Academy) — and briefly — California and worked for three decades for State Farm Insurance. The job gave him the flexibility to coach.
A Tennessee native and 1976 graduate of Gary (Ind.) Wirt High School (he was a Troopers classmate and teammate of future big league slugger Ron Kittle and began coaching at Gary’s Miller Little League as a junior) Warren was one of the early podcasters.
In the mid-2000’s, he and friend Tom Jackson started a baseball podcast in central Illinois.
Warren landed back there while working for State Farm Insurance. He attended Illinois State University in Normal for two years, got married and later graduated from Middle Tennessee State University.
“Bloomington-Normal is a baseball hotbed,” says Warren. “Within three miles of each other you’ve got Heartland Community College which is one of the top junior college baseball programs in the country, Illinois State University which has done very well and Illinois Wesleyan which won the (NCAA) D-III national title.”
At the time, the head coaches were Nate Metzger at Heartland, Mark Kingston at ISU and Dennis Martel at Illinois Wesleyan.
In a 30-mile radius there were about 70 high school graduates playing on college diamonds.
“We decided to take advantage of that and we started a podcast dedicated to local baseball,” says Warren of the show which aired weekly from a local restaurant from March to September or October.
In 2013 while living in Towanda, Ill., Warren got the idea to try to take it national. He contacted Kingston and some other coaches in his inner circle. He learned about third-rail topics to avoid and began to send invitations to potential guests.
“I still thank Tracy Smith for being willing to step out there on faith and do the podcast with me,” says Warren.
His fourth episode in 2013 was with then-Purdue University head coach Doug Schreiber. He followed up with Schreiber in 2014 at Purdue and 2021 at Purdue Fort Wayne.
The first several minutes of the first interview was mostly about Ken Schreiber, who won over 1,000 games and seven state titles as head coach at LaPorte (Ind.) High School.
“Growing up in northwest Indiana there was LaPorte and everybody else who wanted to be LaPorte,” says Warren.
The podcast pioneer has filled guest map from coast-to-coast. Other podcast chats with ties to Indiana include Notre Dame’s Mik Aoki (2015), Saint Joseph’s College’s Rick O’Dette (2015), Indiana’s Chris Lemonis (2016), Noblesville High School’s Justin Keever (2017) and Butler University’s Blake Beemer (2022). He’s shined the Assistant Coach Spotlight on Munster (Ind.) High School graduate and Trinity Christian College’s Adam Enright (2017), IU-Kokomo’s Jason Leone (2018) and Culver (Ind.) Academies’ J.D. Uebler (2022).
At first, Warren went after the biggest names he could find and it was “easy pickings.” He was able to land folks like Florida State’s Mike Martin, Vanderbilt’s Tim Corbin, Louisville’s Dan McDonnell, Texas Christian University’s Jim Schlossnagle and even American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Famer Ron Polk and former Kentucky head coach and SCORE International/Inside Pitch Magazine publisher Keith Madison.
“In other sports those kinds of guys are impossible to get,” says Warren. “(Baseball coaches) love to give back. Baseball coaches are some of the most giving people there are.
“One of the reasons I think both baseball and softball coaches are this way is because you have to do everything yourself. You don’t see high school golf coaches mowing the grass or track coaches lining the track. You don’t see football coaches (lining the field).
“Baseball coaches have to do it all.”
So while not all show guests are the most well-known, they all have a story to tell.
“Top Coach is not just about the biggest names in coaching,” says Warren. “It just means you add something to the sport.”
Warren retired from State Farm, worked briefly in North Carolina and landed with wife, Pam, in Fernandina Beach, Fla. That’s where Corn Belt Sports and its media arm — Top Coach — now calls home.
He records his podcasts and is able to make TC Tour stops around the Sunshine State.
Metzger, who now pitching coach at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, encouraged Warren to attend his first ABCA Convention.
He’s now at regular at the ABCA, where he spends three days in early January going from one person to the next absorbing their stories.

Jack Warren.

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Fundamentals key for Haley, Madison-Grant Argylls

By STEVE KRAH

http://www.IndianaRBI.com

Madison-Grant Junior/Senior High School varsity baseball was building slowly leading into 2020.

With Scott Haley as Argylls head coach, MG won two games in 2017, three in 2018 and seven in 2019. The latter team won its first game in the IHSAA Class 2A Eastern (Greentown) Sectional.

Haley was stressing fundamentals.

“We had lost nine or 10 seniors when I took over,” says Haley. “We were returning little or no varsity experience. The feeder system was not very strong. We were really betting back to the basics of the game like playing catch the correct way.

“It was a rough first year.”

There was anticipation for the following season. But a pandemic took that away and players didn’t get on the field.

“We were ready for a breakthrough season,” says Haley. “My heart broke for them.” 

Haley is now getting Madison-Grant ready for what its hopes will be a fun and successful 2021 campaign, which is slated to open April 5 against Wes-Del. The 2021 roster is expected to have plenty of seniors. Pitcher Nick Evans is expected back as a four-year starter and has gotten plenty of attention from college baseball.

When “Senior Night” comes along, Haley plans to also honor the five players from the Class of 2020. 

Fairmount-based Madison-Grant (enrollment around 365) is a member of the Central Indiana Conference (with Alexandria-Monroe, Blackford, Eastbrook, Elwood, Frankton, Mississinewa and Oak Hill).

The Argylls are part of an IHSAA Class 2A sectional grouping with Blackford, Eastbrook, Eastern (Greentown), Elwood, Taylor and Tipton. Madison-Grant has won six sectional crowns — the last in 2012.

During the fall IHSAA Limited Contact Period, Madison-Grant concentrated on fundamentals.

“We got outside quite a bit and took advantage of the new pitching machine we bought through our fundraiser,” says Haley. “There were a lot of drills and live action. 

“We allow junior high kids to come out also. It gets them excited about the game.”

Winter Limited Contact open gyms began this past week and Haley had 15 players Jan. 5 and 11 Jan. 7.

Madison-Grant plays its home games on-campus. Several upgrades have been made or are planned for the field, including installation of new bullpens, re-sodding, refurbishing of dugouts, new wind screens, edging in the infield and outfield and an overhaul of the mound.

“We’ve tried to do something every year to make it better,” says Haley, who hopes to get to show off the place when his team hosts the Grant Four tournament May 1 (with Eastbrook, Mississinewa and Oak Hill) and Argyll Classic (with Eastern of Greentown, Southern Wells and Tri-Central) May 15.

Besides Haley, the Argylls coaching staff includes Mike Evans, Gary Harbert, Norm Dailey (junior varsity) and Brock Massey (junior high). Haley says he anticipates having around 25 players for varsity and JV teams in the spring.

The well-received junior high program for seventh and eighth graders was established two years ago with about 15 players. Baseball will also be a part of the new Madison-Grant Youth Sports League.

“We’re giving them guidelines that we want them to follow so they’ll be ready when they get to high school,” says Haley.

Prior to taking over the MG baseball program, Haley was JV coach for three seasons on Todd Farr’s Eastbrook staff.

“He was a players’ coach,” says Haley of Farr. “He was good on practice schedules and fundamentals. The kids really enjoyed playing for him. 

“He built that Easbrook program back up.”

Haley is a 1980 Eastbrook graduate. His baseball coach was Tim Sumner.

“He basically taught me almost everything about the game,” says Haley. “He saw something in myself that I had not seen.

“I owe a lot to him.”

Sumner, a 1965 Hammond Morton High School graduate, was a player and assistant coach Taylor University in Upland, Ind., and an assistant for College World Series teams led by Ron Polk at Mississippi State University. He was also an assistant AD at MSU and was director of athletic academics and athletic compliance at the University of Memphis. He established Batters Box Baseball in Collierville, Tenn. Sumner died Dec. 19, 2019.

Haley attended Huntington College (now Huntington University) for one year, but his playing career was ended when he twice re-broke a wrist he had broken already broken in high school.

He recently retired from a 26-year stint as a Walmart manager and works part-time at Lowe’s in Marion, Ind.

Scott and Barbra Haley have been married 31 years. Their daughter Adara (30) is married to Nicholas Smith.

Scott Haley is the head baseball coach at Madison-Grant Junior/Senior High School in Fairmount, Ind. (Madison-Grant Argylls Photo)

Fort Wayne’s DeJesus recalls amateur, professional roots

By STEVE KRAH

http://www.IndianaRBI.com

Javier DeJesus was born in Puerto Rico, shined on the high school diamonds of Texas and excelled collegiately in Louisiana.

Drafted by the Minnesota Twins, his professional baseball career put DeJesus in Fort Wayne, Ind., in 1994.

The former left-handed pitcher has been around the Summit City most of the time since toeing the rubber for the Fort Wayne Wizards (now known as the Fort Wayne TinCaps).

Javi met a local girl (Deborah), fell in love, got married and had three sons (Damon, Jordan and Evan) while staying close to his favorite game.

DeJesus’ day job as a health care administator keeps him busy, but he still has time to teach lessons at The Diamond Baseball and Softball Academy, where Manny Lopez is director of baseball operations.

Javi DeJesus helps coach Fort Wayne Diamondbacks travel teams featuring Jordan (14U DeJesus) and Evan (12U). Damon DeJesus, who played at Indiana University South Bend and in the independent Empire League, is the 14U head coach.

DeJesus and former WOWO radio personality Charly Butcher founded the Fort Wayne Cubs, which later became the Diamondbacks.

Born in Ponce, P.R., DeJesus moved to Moss Bluff, La., as a boy then Beaumont, Texas, where he was one of only two sophomores to play varsity baseball at West Brook Senior High School (catcher Jason Smith, who went on to the University of Texas-Arlington and the Colorado Rockies organization, was the other).

It was as a 10th grader that DeJesus caught the attention of University of Southwestern Louisiana assistant coach Emrick Jagneaux.

“He said, ‘once you get this thing figured out with the curveball, I’ll come back and pick you up,’” says DeJesus of Jagneaux. “He was true to his word.”

DeJesus went to USL (now known as the University of Louisiana-Lafayette) and went 23-1 in three seasons (1990-92) for the Mike Boulanger-coached Ragin’ Cajuns. 

One of his signature victories was a complete game at Mississippi State University in 1991. That team was coached by American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Famer Ron Polk and inside rowdy and intimidating Dudy Noble Field.

The lefty was 22-0 as a starter. He came on in relief against Oregon State University and three crucial errors led to his only college setback.

In his three seasons, the Ragin’ Cajuns went 47-18, 49-20 and 38-23 and won two American South Conference titles and a Sun Belt Conference West crown. 

DeJesus won 13 games for Southwest Louisiana in 1992, was an All-American, co-Sun Belt Pitcher of the Year and selected to Team Puerto Rico. An elbow injury suffered during the Olympic Trials kept him from going to the Barcelona Games, where first-time Olympic baseball qualifier Puerto Rico placed fifth.

In the summer of 1990, DeJesus played American Legion Baseball in Louisiana for McNeese State University head coach Tony Robichaux and assistant Todd Butler.

Robichaux was head coach at Louisiana-Lafayette 1995-2019 (he died after the 2019 season) and won more than 1,100 games in his 33-year career.

The Twins selected DeJesus in the 17th round of the 1992 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft.

He got into just two games in 1992 then went 9-0 at rookie-level Elizabethton, Tenn., in 1993. 

Ray Smith was the Elizabethton manager.

“He’s one of the nicest overall men that has ever graced us with his presence,” says DeJesus of Smith. “His philosophy was very simple: Show us what you can do.”

DeJesus remembers that Smith was very mild-mannered until the morning after an Appalachian League playoff loss at Bluefield, Va., that saw the team get extra-boisterous at the hotel.

Let’s just say the Twins were chewed out before riding back to Tennessee.

Playing at Low Class-A Fort Wayne in 1994, DeJesus encountered manager Jim Dwyer and pitching coach Stew Cliburn.

It was in Fort Wayne that DeJesus, who was in the bullpen at old Memorial Stadium, witnessed the first professional home run for 18-year-old Alex Rodriguez. 

DeJesus can still see the hanging slider by Shane Bowers, who had a cup of coffee with the 1997 Twins, that A-Rod popped for the Appleton Foxes.

Southpaw DeJesus was 5-2 with two saves, a 0.93 earned run average, 55 strikeouts and 13 walks in 38 2/3 innings at Fort Wayne and was at Double-A Nashville briefly before injury cut his season short.

DeJesus recalls that a Nashville TV station aired a lengthy piece about his injury. Xpress manager Phil Roof and pitching coach Rick Anderson were complimentary, saying how the lefty had the make-up to be a top-flight closer or set-up man. 

“My fastball never came back after surgery,” says DeJesus.

After four games at Double-A New Britain, Conn., in 1995, DeJesus spent parts of that season and all of 1996 in independent pro ball with the Alexandria (La.) Aces and the Rio Grande Valley White Wings in Harlingen, Texas.

DeJesus was with Alexandria again in 1997 and hooked on with the Chicago Cubs system, going 3-1 in eight games in 1997 and 5-5 in 1998 — both for High Class-A Daytona, Fla.

Stan Cliburn, twin brother of Stew and Alexandria manager in 1997, fondly recalls DeJesus.

“Great competitor and a winner when he toed the pitchers mound!,” says Cliburn. “Class act.”

Ricky VanAsselberg, who is now the general manager/field manager of the Acadiana Cane Cutters summer collegiate team in Lafayette, La., was an Alexandria teammate.

“I love Javi,” says VanAsselberg. “What a great guy. Great competitor.

“Warrior on the mound.”

It was Alan Dunn, Daytona pitching coach in 1997, that DeJesus learned the 3-2-1 pitch sequencing method that he employs with his young players to this day.

“He showed me that concept and it’s made a world of difference,” says DeJesus. “It gives you the opportunity to be your own pitching coach.”

The method begins with 12 pitches to various parts of the strike zone — inside and outside — and allows the pitcher to evaluate where is more or less consistent, where he is improving or regressing and where his mechanics can be altered to effect the release point.

DeJesus, who likes to take to Twitter to debunk modern training philosophy, is not a big fan of speed for speed’s sake.

“Look at players’ heart,” says DeJesus. “That can’t be quantified. They don’t play for numbers.

“Velocity is king now. To me that’s not pitching. That’s measurables. You have to integrate velocity and command. 

“If you have no clue where it’s going, what’s the purpose of training.”

When teaching his sons to hit, DeJesus has spent time listening to hitting coaches and it’s also helped him as pitching instructor.

“The more I know about hitting, the more I can help pitchers,” says DeJesus. “We can expose weaknesses.”

Puerto Rico-born Jose Santiago, a former big league pitcher and Daytona’s pitching coach in 1998, tried to get DeJesus to become a coach in the Cubs organization.

“I thought I still had some games to play,” says DeJesus. “I wanted to retire on my own terms and not someone else’s.”

The final three pro seasons for DeJesus were spent in independent ball — Nashua (N.H.) Pride in 1999, Lehigh Valley (Pa.) Black Diamonds in 2000 and Alexandria Aces in 2001.

The 2000 season is memorable because it wound up with the team living in tents when bankruptcy proceedings got them thrown out of area hotels.

New Orleans native Kim Batiste, who played on the Philadelphia Phillies World Series team in 1993, cooked for his teammates.

It was also in the Atlantic League that DeJesus got a valuable baseball lesson thanks to former big league slugger Ruben Sierra.

During a pro career that spanned 1983-2006, Puerto Rican Sierra was with the Atlantic City Surf in 1999 and rapped a few offerings from Nashua’s DeJesus.

Baseball lifer Doc Edwards was the Atlantic City manager. 

“Those are the guys who taught me how to pitch,” says DeJesus, who got a chance to talk baseball with those men deep into the night. “The conversation got me to understand what it is to pitch.

“Today, too many pitchers don’t call their own pitches. They don’t get to think for themselves.”

Javier DeJesus and his sons are involved with the Fort Wayne (Ind.) Diamondbacks travel baseball organization.

Javier DeJesus was an All-American baseball player at Southwestern Louisiana University (now known as the University of Louisville-Lafayette).

Javier DeJesus with the Elizabethton (Tenn.) Twins (Classic Best Image).

Javier DeJesus with the Rio Grande Valley White Wings.

Javier DeJesus with the Fort Wayne (Ind.) Wizards (Fleer Image).

Javier DeJesus with the Fort Wayne (Ind.) Wizards (Fleer Image).

Javier DeJesus with the Fort Wayne (Ind.) Wizards (Fleer Image).

Baseball Hall of Famer Trevor Hoffman (left) meets with Javier DeJesus. The latter played 10 years in pro baseball and lives in Fort Wayne, Ind.

Malott has South Dearborn Knights playing ‘old school’ baseball

BY STEVE KRAH

http://www.IndianaRBI.com

Jay Malott comes from the “old school” when it comes to coaching baseball.

“We have the dirtiest uniforms,” says Malott, the head coach at South Dearborn High School in Aurora, Ind., and a South assistant for the 2019 Indiana High School Baseball Coaches North/South All-Star Series in Madison. “We’re sliding head first.

“We’re always intense. We don’t have a problem taking extra bases. We’ll bunt. We’ll do anything we can to win. Pitching-wise, we’ll throw inside and outside.

“The system seems to work and we just pass it down. People say I’m softer than I was when I first started.

“I think I’m doing the same thing.”

After assistant stints at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (with Craig Moore) and Brownstown Central High School, Malott has been coaching in the South Dearborn program for 34 years and is coming up on 25 years of leading the Knights.

Larry Hornbach (who died Dec. 16, 2018) and Mallot are the only head coaches in program history. Mallot has also been a linebackers coach for SD football.

South Dearborn (enrollment around 825) is a member of the Eastern Indiana Athletic Conference (with Batesville, Connersville, East Central, Franklin County, Greensburg, Lawrenceburg and Rushville Consolidated).

In 2018-19, the Knights were part of an IHSAA Class 3A sectional grouping with Batesville, Franklin County, Greensburg, Lawrenceburg, Madison Consolidated and Rushville Consolidated. With 2019’s South Dearborn Sectional title, the Knights have won 12 sectional championships.

This spring produced a 21-8 mark, a co-championship in he EIAC and a Charlestown Invitational title. South Dearborn lost to Silver Creek in the semifinals of the Jasper Regional.

Malott is a 1977 graduate of Eastbrook High School in Marion, Ind., where his baseball coach was Tim Sumner.

“He was a heck of a coach,” says Malott of Sumner, who went on to assist American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Famer Ron Polk and coach future big leaguers Rafael Palmeiro, Will Clark, Bobby Thigpen and Jeff Brantley at Mississippi State University.

What did Malott learn from Sumner?

“Probably about everything,” says Malott. “I became a social studies teacher because of him. I tried to coach like him, but personality’s different so it still comes out different.

“Your personality comes out in your players, too.”

Malott has coached several IHSBCA North/South All-Stars, including Jim Townsend (1986), Brad Tyler (1987), Mark Morris (1994), A.J. Gray (1996), Jared Cutter (1997), Korey Kirkpatrick (1999), Jeremy Legge (2000), Sam Schmeltzer (2007), Wyatt Schwing (2016) and Ethan Getz (2019).

The 2008 IHSBCA North/South All-Star Series was held in Evansville and Malott was a South assistant.

“My favorite day is the one where they use the wooden bats and you can see all the kids’ (high school) uniforms,” says Malott. “I’ve been coaching a long time and I get to meet some of the other coaches and tell stories.”

Stepping back on Gary O’Neal Field at Madison brings fond memories to Malott. His South Dearborn team played the Cubs in the sectional championship game in 1999, the year Madison won the 3A state title.

“It was a close game (5-3),” says Malott. “They were better than us.

“We played these guys in football, basketball and baseball and six times in Legion ball (Malott coached with South Dearborn American Legion baseball for more than 25 years). I knew most of these kids’ families.”

Ben Reel, the head baseball coach at Indiana University Southeast in New Albany since the 2009 season, played at South Dearborn for Malott.

His assistant coaches in 2019 included, Adam Wheat, Dave Burress, Greg Hughes, Tim Studer and T.J. Schomber. Most of them played at SD for Malott and know the system and are able to pass it along to the high schoolers and those in the junior high program which is part of the Knights feeder system.

Youth baseball in Aurora, Dillsboro, Manchester and Moores Hill as well as select teams in the Cincinnati area (Aurora is 25 miles west of Cincy) help develop players for South Dearborn.

Highlander Park, located adjacent to the South Dearborn campus, is the Knights’ home field. In the past three years, the lighted facility has had a nine-inning scoreboard installed with new dugouts, press box and wind screens.

“We keep trying to update it,” says Malott.

Jay and Teresa Malott have one daughter — Ashley. She lives in Lafayette with her husband and three children.

Jay Malott has been coaching baseball at South Dearborn High School in Aurora, Ind., for 34 years and is coming up his his 25th in charge of the Knights program. He was an assistant for the South in the 2019 Indiana High School Baseball Coaches Association North/South All-Star Series in Madison. (Steve Krah Photo)

 

 

Son of former Bethel coach Hutcheon now in Indians organization

By STEVE KRAH

http://www.IndianaRBI.com

Dane Hutcheon has found himself on Indiana soil again this summer — in two different professional baseball uniforms.

Hutcheon, the son of former Bethel College head baseball coach Mike Hutcheon, played for the independent Lake Erie (Ohio) Crushers at Evansville in July.

Now back in affiliated ball with the Lake County (Ohio) Captains in the Cleveland Indians organization, Dane has been taking to the diamond during the current series in Fort Wayne.

Hutcheon recently turned 24, but he was just 7 and the team batboy when the Bethel Pilots ventured from Mishawaka, Ind., to Celina, Ohio, and won the 2002 National Christian College Athletic Association national championship.

Mike Hutcheon, who had been a graduate assistant at Mississippi State University under Hall of Fame coach Ron Polk (1988-89), led Bethel for four seasons (2000-03) then went back to his native Colorado and was head coach at Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs for seven seasons (2004-10) and later three at Colorado Christian University in Lakewood for three (2014-16).

Dane Hutcheon was born in McKinney, Texas and moved with his family to Jackson, Miss., when his father became head baseball coach at Belhaven University, a post he held for five seasons (1995-99) before going to Bethel.

While in northern Indiana, Dane played at what is now known as Harris Baseball Softball in Granger.

A 2013 graduate of Pine Creek High School in Colorado Springs, where he played for Glenn Millhauser, Dane played college baseball at the University of Montevallo (Ala.) for Chandler Rose (who was an assistant to Mike Hutcheon at Air Force).

“In a way it was like playing for my dad,” says Dane Hutcheon of his time with Rose. “To this day, he’s one of my mentors.

“(Millhauser) was another great guy. I’ve had a lot of luck with coaches.”

After three seasons at Montevallo (2014-16) where he played shortstop and hit .310 with three home runs, four triples, 30 doubles, 83 runs batted in, 132 runs scored and 28 stolen bases, Dane Hutcheon was selected in the 29th round of the 2016 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft by the Minnesota Twins.

Hutcheon played for the Short Season Class-A Gulf Coast League Twins in parts of 2016 and 2017 and also with the High-A Fort Myers Miracle in 2017.

The Twins released him in March 2018 and he hooked on with Lake Erie, where he hit .305 with three homers, 29 RBIs and 16 stolen bases as a Frontier League all-star and caught the attention of an Indians scout.

The lefty-swinging 5-foot-9, 177-pounder then moved his base of operations from the west side of Cleveland to the east. His first game with Lake County in the Low Class-A Midwest League was Aug. 21. In his first nine games with the Captains, he hit .300 with nine singles, three RBIs and one stolen base.

“Every one in awhile I squeak a home run out but, other than that, I do whatever I can to try to help the team,” says Hutcheon. “I wasn’t always the fastest or never really had any power (as a youngster). But as I got older and filled out body, things happened in the way they did.

“I was kind of a late bloomer in a way.”

A shortstop in college and second baseman in the Twins system, he has been used at third base so far this summer.

“I have a decent arm and I’m able to move,” says Hutcheon. “It’s been awesome to play other positions. I get to see how it all works.”

Throughout his baseball career, Mike Hutcheon has been Dane Hutcheon’s rock.

“My dad has always been that guy that I could go to if things are going good or bad,” says Hutcheon. “He tells me that there’s so much more than life than just the game. It’s helped me relax. He’s always there to give me pointers. He keeps me strong in my faith. He’s just a great guy to have as a mentor.

“He’s always just a phone call away to help put things into perspective and calm me down when I need it.”

Mike and Laura Hutcheon have four children — Manie, Dane, Gigi and Hal. Dane’s older sister works in Arizona. His younger sister is in college. His younger brother is a baseball player at student at Discovery Canyon Campus High School in Colorado Springs. Laura Hutcheon is the cheerleading coach at Air Force.

“We’re a family full of athletes,” says Dane Hutcheon.

Dane Hutcheon, son of former Bethel College baseball head coach Mike Hutcheon, recently joined the Lake County (Ohio) Captains of the Cleveland Indians organization. Dane was a youngster when his father’s 2002 Bethel team won a National Christian College Athletic Association national championship. (Steve Krah Photo)