Rippey Was Long A Baseball Town
Robert Huber has thoughtfully donated a book to the Rippey Library about a well-liked former Rippey baseball coach. Robert also shared this essay about the many persons associated with Rippey baseball, athletics, town, and school who influenced him.
I do not know exactly when I became a baseball fan but I do remember trying to hit green walnuts the first day I went to kindergarten. Dad told some stories about Lester Zanotti and Danny Peters. I was honored to see both of them a few years ago. I enjoyed the times we went to the game on the fourth of July with the fireworks and seeing games under the lights.
The baseball players from Rippey were like heroes to me. My first organized baseball was when I was eight years old and went to Pee Wees in a white t-shirt and jeans. My first coach was a young guy named Pat Daugherty. A book I recently purchased and donated to the Rippey Library gives an excerpt about his teaching position in Rippey. The book tells about his experiences at Indian Hills and I rejoice I found it.
Pat would put me in to pitch a couple of games. I would walk the first two batters and out to center field I would go. I have wondered all these years why he did that? One of the great experiences I had in athletics was playing for Charlie Tipton because he always believed in me and was so kind with praise and support. The only home run I ever hit until my senior year in high school was in Little League. It was thrilling to run the bases in a handed down baseball uniform with an R on my chest.
My favorite teacher in high school was Mel Murken, who taught American history, something I was to do for nine years. During my freshman year I was privileged to play spring baseball with Dave Chase and Harvey Rice and other good athletes. In the spring of my sophomore year we did not have spring baseball and I went out for track. I was pretty good at track but I decided I would rather run on the baseball field. So during the year prior to my junior year I initiated a petition to resume spring baseball.
In a school board meeting it was brought to a vote and it lost 4 to 1 but thanks to my Dad for supporting me. We learned that Mel Murken would be leaving after that summer so we decided to have Mel Murken Night when we played Jefferson High School.
The year before Steve Fagen had pitched a no-hitter and a one-hitter vs. Jefferson. My junior year he was out of town at game time. We started that game by immediately getting behind either 8 to 1 or 8 to 0. Then it started to rain lightly. I begged Jack Anderson to not call the game.
The Jefferson pitcher began to slip and slide on the mound and walked several batters and we came up with some key hits. Coach Murken put me in to pitch in the 4th and 5th innings. Even though the Rams hit some rockets they went right to people like Mike Thompson at second base and Craig Eilbert in center field. We ended up winning the game 18 to 8 in five innings, the greatest athletic thrill I ever experienced as a player. We had won one for the coach!
I was privileged to be an assistant/sophomore baseball coach for Lou Koenigsfeld at Charles City. I know that at least three of our players played for Pat Daugherty at Indian Hills. His eldest son, Ron, was drafted and played in the minor leagues for a time. When Ron came home from school he told Lou that we could improve on some maintenance issues for the field that he had learned from Pat Daugherty.
We did not have a VW to drag the field, but we did use a small John Deere tractor and made a couple of devices to work on the pitching mound. Ironically, like Coach Daugherty who built fields at Indian Hills, we help build what became Lou Koenigsfeld baseball field in Charles City. I was blessed to have contact with three Iowa Hall of Fame baseball coaches: Pat Daugherty, Mel Murken, and Lou Koenigsfeld and a Hall of Fame baseball umpire, Jack Anderson.
I am grateful to all the Rippey folks who made baseball a part of my experience, people like Walt Anderson, LeRoy Overman, and Jake Peters. I hope you check out the book, “Community Treasure “by Phil Janssen and Jerry Tapp about Pat Daugherty, you will know that a part of Rippey went on with him, and Pat inspired us.