Allegany High School baseball coach Duane McMinn, your basic early-to-bed, early-to-riser during the school week, decided what the heck. On Wednesday night he would stay up late to watch a baseball game from the West Coast as 22-year-old rookie Nick Adenhart would make his fourth major-league start for the Los Angeles Angels.
Adenhart, of course, was a can’t-miss prospect back on the day he pitched against McMinn’s Allegany Campers in, yes, THAT game, for which a strong case can be made as being the best high school baseball game ever played in these parts.
It was May 13, 2003, a Maryland Class 1A West Region playoff game at Campobello, and in front of 14 major-league scouts, two future major leaguers, Williamsport High’s Adenhart and Allegany High lefthander Aaron Laffey, produced one of the most remarkable pitching performances in Maryland scholastic baseball history. Laffey, a senior, struck out 19, walked only one, and allowed two singles. Adenhart, a junior, struck out 14, walked one, hit two, and pitched a no-hitter against the Campers. And lost, 1-0.
“The dominance of both pitchers is what I’ll remember the most,” McMinn said Thursday afternoon, just hours after learning Adenhart had been killed in a hit-and-run crash in Fullerton, Calif., shortly after pitching six shutout innings in a 3-0 Angels loss to Oakland. “You could tell both of them were destined for something special. The sky was the limit for both of them.”
Many a pro prospect possesses an assortment of pitches that will bring the scouts and their radar guns to the neighborhood, but Adenhart had even more: the physical and mental make-up, and the awareness of what it takes to become a big-leaguer. And a good one, at that.
“We had scouted (Williamsport) before (the playoff game), and, of course, we saw him that night,” McMinn said. “He was a tall, lanky kid, but he made everything appear so effortless. You really couldn’t get a gauge on how hard he was throwing unless it was coming at you. He was very calm, and very composed.
“He came up the next year and no-hit us again in the first game of the season ... He won that game, though.”
On Wednesday night, Adenhart scattered seven hits over his six scoreless innings and worked out of two bases-loaded jams, striking out five and walking three, which pleased Adenhart’s former opponent to no end.
“It was fun watching him pitch,” McMinn said. “He did a lot of the same things we saw before, and it was just a good feeling to have seen somebody up close and to have coached against somebody who would go on and play on the big stage and be able to pitch the way he did.
“He did well (Wednesday night). His breaking ball was filthy.”
It goes without saying, Aaron Laffey is McMinn’s favorite baseball player; but it can also be said that, other than Laffey’s pro career, McMinn followed Adenhart’s as close, if not closer, than any other professional player. Even six years later, unspoken bonds stretch from one coast to the other between all who take part in something so memorable as that May 13, 2003 high school baseball game — sometimes, particularly between competitors.
“I would say so,” McMinn said. “After that game, we enjoyed following Nick ever since he was drafted. Going all the way back to the minors, we’d look at his stats every time he pitched.”
Or stay up late on a school night to watch him make his fourth major-league start.
The memory of Adenhart will stay with all who followed his story, which included his coming back from Tommy John surgery to pitch in the big leagues. That includes all of professional baseball and much of amateur baseball, including right here, beginning six years ago when Nick Adenhart came our way and, along with Aaron Laffey, gave us a baseball game for the ages.
“Just shocking,” McMinn said before hanging up the phone. “Stunned ... I got the call this morning, and found out the news. And I’m still shocked.
“All of us here ... Our thoughts and prayers go out to Nick’s family and to all of his friends ...
“Just a tragedy.”
Mike Burke is sports editor of the Cumberland Times-News. Contact Mike Burke at mburke@times-news.com.
Mike Burke - Sports
There are bonds that hold forever
- Mike Burke - Sports
-
-
Somewhere over the rainbow starts here
During a break in the program Sunday night, former Pittsburgh Pirates slugger Bob Robertson sat at a table backstage sharing some stories from the day when he played some of the finest defensive first base and hit some of the longest home runs in the major leagues in helping the Bucs to the 1971 world championship.
-
Ronnie Cage’s life was deeds, not words
It was right they observed a moment of silence at the Allegany-Fort Hill basketball game. And I hope they observed a moment of silence at all of the games this week — boys and girls, men’s and women’s — in all the area gyms — Maryland and West Virginia.
That’s because Ronnie Cage worked them all. And before that he played them all. -
No plus-one would have come out of this Orange
Having never been what one would call a big West Virginia fan, I nevertheless find myself entertained by Mountaineers head football coach Dana Holgorsen whenever I take in a WVU game.
-
Daumie No. 51
It’s difficult and it’s unsettling — something we’re not ready to come to terms with, really — when we lose Larger than Life.
-
At Fort Hill, they’re all in it together
They still decorate their homes and neighborhoods with red and white streamers and signs. They hang football helmets with jersey numbers on telephone poles and trees, and they leave them there until it’s pretty much time to decorate for Christmas.
-
Let’s keep lips zipped and just go about our business
The worst part about snow, other than shoveling it, of course, is being surrounded by all the moaning and groaning about how much it’s going to snow before a flake even touches earth and then having to put up with the same moaning and groaning once it begins to snow.
-
There are no queens on the sports page
Some high school football seasons it is easier to tell when big things have happened and when big things are ahead by some of the phone calls and letters we receive here in the Times-News sports department. There just seems to be more of a chippiness some years than in others, and this year has been one of those years.
-
K.C. latest Laffey Tour over America destination
As of now it appears Aaron Laffey will be wearing royal blue again — Kansas City Royals blue, that is — as the Royals acquired the former Allegany High School left-hander from the New York Yankees in a waivers claim on Tuesday.
-
In America ...
Of course you remember where you were when you heard.
What you really remember is how you felt when you realized it wasn’t just a bad pilot or an airplane malfunction when you saw the second plane go into the second tower.
Until the day we are no longer here, the realization that we had just been attacked — somehow, by somebody — will stay with us and move us. -
Keyser, Fort Hill clash tonight
Fort Hill and Keyser, both coming off lopsided season-opening victories, will square off at Greenway Avenue Stadium, while Frankfort entertains Grafton in the Falcons’ home opener in two of seven high school football games featuring nine area teams taking place tonight.
- More Mike Burke - Sports Headlines
-
