MSL Baseball: Fremd Ultimately Achieved Greatness in First MSL State Baseball Tourney Trip in '79
Vikings Overcame Mid-Season Slump to Nearly Reach Championship Game
Expectations were high for Fremd going into the 1979 baseball season.
Mid-Suburban League coaches picked Terry Gellinger’s crew to win the North Division title in a Daily Herald poll. The Vikings backed it up early by winning their first four league games.
But they went backwards at midseason and fell out of the MSL North race behind Barrington and Palatine. Hopes of making any postseason noise looked unlikely.
Then everything changed and the Vikings put it all together. Not only did they become the first MSL baseball team to reach the state’s Elite Eight and final four, they came within one swing of playing for a state championship.
“It feels good,” Gellinger told the Herald’s Alan Pakaski after Fremd won the sectional title. “I tell you, I didn’t think I’d ever get down there.”
The former star pitcher at Proviso East and the University of Illinois became Fremd’s first varsity coach in 1967 after two years in charge at Palatine. Gellinger led the Vikings to three MSL North titles going into the 1979 season and the return of tall right-handed ace Pat Griffin, who went 9-2 as a junior, was one of the reasons observers believed they could be in line for title No. 4.
Everything started off well at 4-0 in the MSL North but an offensive sabbatical ended those title hopes and Fremd was hardly rolling into the Prospect Class AA regional. Griffin delivered a tight 4-3 win over Schaumburg on the same afternoon the Phillies beat the Cubs in their memorable 23-22 slugfest at Wrigley Field. The Vikings finally broke out their bats in a 14-4 regional semifinal win over St. Viator that included a 2-run homer by junior Todd Privett.
“We had a seven-game stretch during midseason where we just couldn’t buy any hits, but we seem to have broken out of that slump now,” Gellinger told the Herald.
That set up a crosstown battle with the first regional title at stake for both Palatine schools. Interestingly the closest either had come was in 1966 when Palatine reached a regional championship game in Gellinger’s second and final year as its head coach.
Griffin delivered a complete-game 3-hitter with 7 strikeouts and 1 walk to improve to 7-2 as Fremd won 4-0. Catcher Benjy Hohman had a first-inning RBI double and Larry Hernandez had a ground-rule RBI double.
“Pat was sharp,” Gellinger told the Herald’s John Stewart after Griffin tied the school record for career wins at 16. “He was ready and in control the whole way.”
Next was the Dundee sectional where Fremd and Griffin held off a late Freeport rally to win 7-5 as Dave Anderson hit a 3-run homer. Everything clicked in a 15-3 sectional championship win over Larkin in 6 innings that sent the Vikings to the Elite Eight.
Privett led a 14-hit attack with 3 hits, a homer and 3 RBI, they were 7-for-7 in stolen bases and committed only 1 error behind winner Dave Manning. The game was tied 2-2 after an inning but Manning settled down to put the MSL in the state tournament for the first time.
“This is a dream,” Manning told Pakaski. “I think it’s great; just to get down there is unbelievable. If we keep this up with our hitting, pitching and defense, I don’t see why we can’t go all the way.”
One of the scheduling quirks in those days was the Vikings still had to finish MSL play during their postseason run. They ended Palatine’s hopes for a North title in a 3-2 win by Griffin.
But Griffin’s biggest start was still to come as there was nearly a two-week gap between the end of the sectional and start of the Elite Eight at Bradley University’s Meinen Field. Griffin took a 9-2 record and 1.80 ERA into a Thursday afternoon semifinal against Chicago Public League champion Clemente.
“Our whole team is loose,” Griffin told the Herald’s Dave Jacobson.
“I feel we’ll be very competitive but if something should go wrong and we get beat there won’t be a lot of hollering and screaming,” Gellinger said of his even-keeled approach. “We’ll remember that we got here and that we did our best. If Griffin throws strikes - and I know he will - we should be competitive.”
Privett (.346), Hernandez (.337), second baseman Devin Fletcher (.328), center fielder Ron Burke (.323) and Hohman (.301) gave Fremd five starters hitting better than .300. Griffin said he liked pitching the big games and Hohman said Gellinger’s ability to crack jokes kept everyone relaxed.
“It was a sort of a shock,” Griffin said. “Everything just fell into place. It’s hard to believe we’re here.”
“I don’t think it’s hit us yet,” Hohman said. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. The pressure? I haven’t really thought much about it. But when we take the field for the Star Spangled Banner it’ll probably come.”
Jacobson wrote that there were some concerns if Clemente would be coming to Peoria because of financial issues but the team left Chicago for Peoria at noon Wednesday. Clemente’s Rich Tomoleoni, one of the Public League’s most successful and respected coaches, opted to start sophomore Luis Alers instead of ace Hector Exclusa for the quarterfinal game moved to Peoria’s south suburb of Bartonville because of heavy rains.
But the only out by Fremd in the first four batters came on a caught stealing and Alers was pulled for Exclusa with the bases loaded. Gellinger told Jacobson “it was a gamble and it didn’t work” as Hernandez had an RBI single in a 5-run first and Griffin improved to 10-2 with an 8-5 victory.
The game was a microcosm of the season as Griffin struggled midway through. The lead dwindled to 5-4 and Gellinger thought about going to the bullpen, but stuck with Griffin and he retired the final 9 hitters.
“This feels great,” Griffin said. “This is the peak, especially being a senior. I’m happy, man, and I want to get ‘em tomorrow.”
The semifinal would pit the Vikings against Mt. Carmel. It wasn’t the familiar Chicago South Side Catholic powerhouse but the small school from the east central Illinois town of 9,000 that was just four students over the A/AA enrollment cutoff of 750.
Manning allowed only 1 hit and 1 unearned run in the second in 5⅓ innings but that was enough for Mt. Carmel to improve to 17-1. Pitchers Todd Painter and Reggie Fischer threw harder than what Fremd saw from Clemente and combined on a 4-hitter in a 2-0 victory.
Griffin came on in relief and left the bases loaded in the sixth but gave up a run in the seventh. The Vikings threatened and loaded the bases with no outs as Hohman walked, Fletcher singled and left fielder Dave Bjork reached on an error. One swing could have put them in that evening’s championship game but Mt. Carmel escaped with a strikeout, flyout and popout.
“It’s tough to lose and I’m disappointed that we lost,” Gellinger said. “But I’m proud of the kids. They gave it their best. We just fell a little short ability-wise and that’s tough to overcome.”
That ended Fremd’s memorable 19-11 season as the IHSA didn’t play a third-place game in baseball until 1989. Mt. Carmel fell to Proviso West 5-1 for the AA title.
Gellinger would nearly return to the Elite Eight in 1981 with a 23-7 sectional finalist. His final team in 1984, led by Jim Kating, Dave Eck, Jeff Bossong and Rob McCormack, went 24-5 and lost in the state quarterfinals. McCormack’s 10 wins matched Griffin’s school record and stood until 2000 when Jeff Maitland had 12 wins for the fourth-place state finisher coached by Paul Belo.
And Fremd’s breakthrough started an impressive run in the 1980s for the MSL that was highlighted by Barrington’s title and consecutive second-place finishes (1986-88) and Schaumburg’s runner-up finish (1989).
Schaumburg would win it all in 1997, Barrington took third in 1998 and 2005 and Prospect finished third in Class 4A in 2011. Conant ended a 13-year drought of MSL teams reaching the state finals and took second place in the program’s first appearance.