Wilson Making Triumphant Return to Williamsport
Mariners' Manager, Hall of Famer Brings Team to MLB Little League classic; Led Barrington to Third Place in 1981 Little League World Series
Dan Wilson returns to Williamsport, Pennsylvania this weekend as one of Little League Baseball’s biggest success stories.
Wilson was the pitching and catching star of the 1981 Barrington team that reached the Little League World Series. A team coached by his father Stan that came thisclose to playing in the championship game before finishing in third place.
While the LLWS is the baseball highlight for most participants, it was just the beginning of acclaim and fame for Wilson. He was the centerpiece when Barrington bashed its way to the 1986 Class AA state title and became an All-American at the University of Minnesota in 1990.
The first-round draft pick in 1990 quickly ascended to the big leagues with the Cincinnati Reds two years later and then his career took off when he was traded to the Seattle Mariners before the 1994 season. He became an All-Star in 1996 and one of the best defensive catchers in major-league history before receiving induction into the team’s Hall of Fame.
And now, nearly a year after taking over as the Mariners’ manager, he will bring his red-hot team into Sunday’s eighth annual MLB Little League Classic (6 p.m. Chicago time on ESPN) against the Mets at Bowman Field in Williamsport. The Mariners lost Wednesday night in Baltimore but at 67-54 are just a game behind Houston in the American League West race and hold the No. 1 wild card spot.
The big league teams get the chance to watch some of the LLWS action earlier in the day so that’s sure to bring back some memories of Wilson, whose overall managing record stands at 88-67.
Some of the prominent baseball people in Wilson’s life - Barrington’s Kirby Smith and Dave Engle and Minnesota’s Rob Fornasiere - shared some of their memories of him last fall after he became a big-league manager for the first time. We have those along with some of the memorable moments for Barrington’s LLWS team 44 years ago and how Wilson, his slugging catcher Cal Raleigh and Fremd grad and former All-Star catcher Todd Hundley are linked together.
The Right Stuff in So Many Ways
Kirby Smith had plenty of baseball to concentrate on the Barrington varsity and summer league teams and the American Legion club. His 1979 Legion team made its own run into the national spotlight and finished third in the American Legion World Series in Mississippi.
Little League success, just like that at the high school underclass levels, doesn’t necessarily translate to big things at the varsity level. But there were a lot of good signs with the 1981 Little League team run by Dan Wilson’s father Stan, who passed away in 2022 at 83, and the father of Mark Levin. Dan Wilson, Levin, Mike Bradley, future pro James Wambach, Tony Mensik, Bob Beaubien and Hans Bjors would all go on to play for the ‘86 state champs, according to the Barrington Baseball record book.
Plus, the year before Dan Wilson entered high school, his brother Matt hit .433 with 4 homers and was an all-Mid-Suburban League selection as a senior and “an outstanding hitter,” according to Smith.
“That (Little League) team was very, very well put together by Dan’s father Stan and Mark Levin,” Smith said. “His father and the other fathers were very involved in promoting Barrington baseball and it was reflected in our facilities. They were paid for by the Barrington baseball parents and friends and families and we put in the underground water system.
“Stan Wilson was a very good baseball person. If you involved yourself in a conversation with him he could talk baseball and hitters counts and pitch selection, hitting the ball to the opposite field. It was all what became part of Dan Wilson’s personality when he got to Barrington.”
Smith took the approach of a big-league team handling a young phenom and didn’t want to rush Wilson up to the varsity too soon. But his stay on the equivalent of a high school farm team was brief.
“We knew very much about Wilson and his reputation, but what I wanted to do as a varsity coach was confirm and see where he fit in the program,” Smith said. “As a freshman he came out for baseball and I talked with Dave Engle. We said we’ll put Wilson on the freshman team and let him play a few games and if it’s appropriate we’ll make a move.
“It became immediately clear, in addition to his baseball skills, he had the personality skills. As an incoming freshman he had command of communication and expressing his opinions and motivations with the upperclass kids. We moved him to the varsity and said, ‘We’re going to DH for you and you’re gonna catch.’ In one week Wilson threw out more people than our existing catcher and I said, ‘Whoa.’”
Smith said they knew Wilson was an outstanding pitcher. Smith also had the rare luxury of leading the high school and Legion teams so he put Wilson on the latter against the older, tougher competition and had him catching and hitting cleanup.
Wilson was unquestionably a dangerous hitter at Barrington. Smith used the phrase that he was all-state at two positions as he went 27-1 on the mound for the ‘86 champs and ‘87 runner-up. But Wilson also displayed the kind of ability that would serve him well during his 14-year big-league career.
“He was an outstanding right-field hitter,” Smith said. “My teams were very, very good at hitting the ball the opposite way. We’d practice in batting practice every day. We knew what we were trying to do and we were very tuned in to certain pitching counts.
“My hitters would get a pitch-by-pitch sign on what they were gonna do. Needless to say Wilson was the best of all of them. He had the ability to hit the ball to right field like you wouldn’t believe. What pitches to look for in counts - Wilson was just outstanding at it. He could just crush the ball to right-center in high school.”
Wilson was also an outstanding student at Barrington who went to Minnesota to study engineering. And he was a student of the game for a coach regarded as one of the best in state history.
“Wilson made me a genius and everybody else he’s been around he’s made very smart, too. I can tell you Wilson is smart enough,” Smith said. “He knew everything that was going on on a ballfield even in high school.
“He watched everything, charted everything, keeping counts. Wilson mastered all that stuff. Everything Engle did went through Wilson on selection of pitches. Wilson could run the whole game for you.”
Which he’s doing now with major success in Seattle.
DAN WILSON - BARRINGTON CAREER STATS
(From Barrington Baseball Record Book)
HITTING
108 games
339 at-bats
109 runs
138 hits
.414 average/.480 on-base percentage/.730 slugging percentage/1.210 OPS
33 doubles
6 triples
20 homers
124 RBI
21 strikeouts
PITCHING
44 games
31-3 record, 5 saves
1.75 ERA
215⅔ IP
138 hits
276 strikeouts
87 walks
23 complete games
7 shutouts
The Gopher Was Golden
Rob Fornasiere was about to tee off at the sixth hole of a golf round when his phone rang. He said he could talk later but quickly told the caller:
“Dan Wilson is the best kid I’ve ever met,” Fornasiere said of his 40-year coaching career.
Fornasiere started coaching at a community college in 1980. He went to the University of Minnesota to work for the legendary John Anderson in the fall of 1985 and stayed until he retired in 2018.
Fornasiere recruited Wilson and he came to Minnesota as a pitcher and catcher. He did both his freshman year - going 4-3 on the mound with a 4.20 ERA - before focusing on catching strikes instead of throwing them.
“It became quickly apparent he had a great future as a catcher,” Fornasiere said. “Quite frankly I think he could have been a major-league pitcher. He was a quarterback in football and a goalie in hockey, which helped his catching, and he loved hockey.
“I got to know him and his family, his dad Stan and his mom Lily. A great family who is the greatest kid I’ve ever known. He was a kid who made a history and series of great decisions and was a great team leader.”
Fornasiere said that even after Wilson was drafted in the first round by the Reds in 1990, his mom didn’t want him to sign so he could get his degree. Twenty years later he did graduate from Minnesota and walked through the ceremony in his cap and gown with his wife and kids in attendance. His son Eli would ended up playing at Minnesota as well.
As a true freshman Wilson was starting behind the plate and hitting ninth when Minnesota won the Big Ten title. He moved up to cleanup as a sophomore and Fornasiere said in Wilson’s third and final season 28 baserunners tried to steal on him and only 4 weren’t running back to their dugout. Wilson became one of the program’s 23 first-team All-Americans, along with Hall of Famers Dave Winfield and Paul Molitor, after hitting .370 and slugging .608 with 8 homers and 49 RBI in 181 at-bats.
“Just a dominant, dominant talent,” Fornasiere said. “He was a great teammate who just had the right values and was brought up the right way.”
Wilson continued to exhibit those values on and off the field in Seattle, where he and his wife became very involved in charitable causes. Fornasiere mentioned all the different roles he’s played for the Mariners that include spring-training catching instructor, fill-in minor-league manager and broadcaster.
“Nothing he does surprises me,” Fornasiere said. “Until I started recruiting that area I had no idea how popular he was in that area. He’s smart enough he could probably be president of the Mariners. He’s got that presence about him. He could be higher than this. Major League Baseball is all about managing people and he’ll do a great job.
“He just has an air of calmness, a calm demeanor and a positive approach. When Dan retired, people came out of the woodwork to congratulate him because he knew everybody and treated them all with respect. His approach translates to the players and my guess is they’re going to respond to him.
“I’ve Been fortunate to maintain a relationship with Dan and his family and that led to the relationship with Eli. I told John Anderson - we can coach another 30 years and we’ll never have another kid like that.”
DAN WILSON - MINNESOTA CAREER STATS
(University of Minnesota baseball records)
.337 average
.528 slugging percentage
178 hits
36 doubles
7 triples
17 HR
119 RBI
An Eye-Catching Moment
Dave Engle has always had an eye for art. Whether it was in classrooms or his art studios where he taught and worked or from bullpens or dugouts where he taught and coached pitchers.
Engle was early in his Hall of Fame coaching career at Barrington and the team had just wrapped up a postgame meeting. Engle was walking back toward the home dugout on the third-base line when Stan Wilson asked Engle if he would watch his son Dan, who was in junior high, throw a few pitches.
“Stan said, ‘I think he’s pretty good, but I’m not sure,’” Engle said.
What Engle viewed was, rest assured, eye-catching.
“It took about five minutes to go, ‘Oh my goodness gracious,’” Engle said.
Engle regarded Stan Wilson as the No. 1 parent he came across and they became really good friends.
“He was so supportive and calm about things,” Engle said.
And the son became easily the No. 1 player to come through the storied Barrington baseball program. As a sophomore he started in the 1985 MSL championship game loss to Rolling Meadows’ Ken Huseby, who was taken in the third round of that year’s big-league draft.
It wouldn’t be long before Wilson would be a focal point of interest for big-league teams. At a time where there were no pitching restrictions, he had the rare capability to handle being on the mound one day and behind the plate the next, even though there was a challenge when it came to arm care.
“Being a catcher helped his awareness as a pitcher and he picked up a slider really fast,” Engle said. “He was primarily a fastball, slider, change pitcher. Had a great arm. A fast arm. His arm speed was noticeably different than everybody else.
“As a catcher, if he threw a complete game on Monday, he’d come in the next morning to me. We’d meet in the gymnastics room and I had a light ball routine where he threw lighter balls, a light foam ball that weighed 8 grams.
“He’d come in after throwing the day before and had a routine so could get his arm ready for the next day. And then you add this quirk - he was allergic to ice then. He couldn’t ice his arm because he’d get a rash.”
The arm would hold up well through the rigors of 14 years of big-league catching. When Engle and Kirby Smith went to Seattle for Dan Wilson Day after he retired, Wilson threw out the ceremonial first pitch.
“We were underneath waiting for him to come in and I looked at him and asked, ‘Slider or fastball,’” Engle said with a laugh. “He said, ‘My shoulder hurts so bad I couldn’t get it to the plate.’”
But Wilson doesn’t have to worry about that anymore. Engle said he was surprised Wilson became a manager but not with his successful transition to the dugout.
Adding friend, ex-teammate and Hall of Famer Edgar Martinez on the staff as the Director of Hitting Strategy helped boost an offense that was one of the worst in baseball when Wilson took over last August.
“I always thought he’d have baseball management-type potential and maybe go into administration,” Engle said of Wilson. “ I didn’t think of him as a coach although he’s obviously a good coach and good communicator. It was his decision to call Edgar and it was a genius decision.
“When he retired he invited Kirby and I to Dan Wilson Day. I had no idea until I got out there how much that whole town loves him. On billboards, everywhere you went you saw references to him. He’s been embraced by that town and he’s done so many good things through philanthropies and community work. The Seattle Mariners won’t (crap) on him.”
Remembering How the Kids Played in Williamsport
The road to Williamsport in 1981 went through Libertyville and Bucyrus, Ohio for Barrington.
Barrington claimed the state title with a 6-0 win over Jackie Robinson West as Dan Wilson threw a 2-hitter, hit 2 homers and drove in 4 runs. That improved Wilson’s record to 8-0 with 7 homers and the team’s record to 14-2 in tournament play.
Next was a trip to Bucyrus, located between Toledo and Columbus in Ohio, for the Central States Regional. The first game was a 12-0 romp over Tallmadge, Ohio as Wilson (9-0) threw another 2-hitter with 11 strikeouts, Mike Bradley hit a 3-run homer and Scott Morrow drove in 3 runs.
Beating Detroit Southwest for the regional title to go to the LLWS was a lot tougher but Barrington came back and then hung on for a 7-6 victory to improve to 16-2. Bradley had a 2-run single and Paul Kamhout an RBI single in a 3-run third to erase a 3-2 deficit. Bradley also pitched the last 4 innings and Detroit made it a bit dicey with 2 runs in the sixth and final inning.
“It’s amazing,” said Stan Wilson in the Daily Herald. “The kids really believe in themselves.”
The team was bused to Columbus and took flights to Pittsburgh and then Williamsport for the eight-team LLWS that included four U.S. and four international teams from Taiwan, Canada, Latin America and Europe. Before 10,000 fans at historic Howard J. Lamade Stadium, Barrington rallied to beat West champion Escondido, California 6-5. Dan Wilson overcame uncharacteristic wildness with 6 walks and an early 3-0 deficit to throw another complete game.
“All I thought of at that point was coming back,” the younger Wilson told the Herald. “We needed to, but I was worried at that point.”
But the bats of Wilson, J.D. Wagner, Bradley and Mark Levin, and Bradley cutting down a runner trying to score from second on a single to center, pushed Barrington to a 6-3 lead and it hung on to advance to the semifinals. Next up was Belmont Heights from Tampa, Florida, the defending U.S. champion which lost 4-3 to Taiwan in the title game a year earlier with future big-leaguers Gary Sheffield and Derek Bell.
Bell, who hit 134 homers in an 11-year MLB career with 5 teams, was back and Tampa was one out away from an easy 11-4 victory. Barrington made it extremely difficult with 8 consecutive hits that included Bradley’s 3-run homer over a leaping Bell in center to cut the deficit to 11-7.
“That really picked the kids up,” Stan Wilson told the Herald. “Every ball we hit that inning was a smash.”
Kamhout, Matt Henkel and Bob Beaubien singled to make it 11-9 and put runners at second and third. Wagner lined a single to right that was bobbled as Henkel scored but Marc Acerra was thrown out on a bang-bang play at the plate.
“We are extremely proud of this team,” Wilson said. “The kids have nothing to be ashamed of. They worked their hearts out there today and came up one run short. We played a little sloppily in the fourth and fifth innings and kind of let Tampa get away from us.”
So instead of playing Taiwan on Saturday afternoon in the nationally-televised LLWS title game on ABC’s Wide World of Sports, Barrington came back on Friday night and beat the Canadian champions from British Columbia 7-3 for third place and an 18-3 finish to tourney play. Wilson capped a perfect 11-0 summer on the mound as he took a no-hitter into the fifth inning of a complete game. Bradley hit 2 homers and drove in 5 runs to finish the LLWS with 10 RBI.
“The kids came out today and played good baseball and we’re proud of them,” Stan Wilson said. “We didn’t have any trouble getting them up for the game.”
Five years later, Wilson, Bradley, Levin, Wambach, Mensik, Beaubien and Bjors would be part of the MSL’s first baseball state champion. Acerra was also part of the state runner-up finishes by the Broncos in 1987-88.
BARRINGTON 1981 LITTLE LEAGUE ROSTER
(according to Little League Baseball website)
Marc Acerra, Bob Beaubien, Eric Benson, Hans Bjors, Mike Bradley, Greg Cohen, Matt Henkel, Paul Kamhout, Mark Levin, Tony Mensik, Scott Morrow, David Pfeifer III, J.D. Wagner, James Wambach, Dan Wilson.
MSL Connections to Cal Raleigh’s Power at the Plate
The power surge by the Mariners’ Cal Raleigh toward having the most homers in a season by a primary catcher (who catches at least half his team’s games) is linked to the two best catchers from the MSL in Dan Wilson and Fremd’s Todd Hundley. Both were drafted by the Mets in 1987, with second-round pick Hundley deciding to start his pro career and 27th-round pick Wilson opting to go to college at Minnesota.
Raleigh has 45 homers in his first full season playing for Wilson and is tied with Johnny Bench (1970). The most homers in a season by a primary catcher is 48 by the Royals’ Salvador Perez in 2021.
Hundley, the son of Cubs’ catching legend Randy, hit a career-high and Mets’ record 41 in 1996. At the time that tied Hall of Famer Roy Campanella (1953 Brooklyn Dodgers) and made Hundley just the third catcher in MLB history to hit 40 homers in a season. Hundley and Wilson also played in the MLB All-Star Game that season.
“It’s tough to hit as a catcher, period,” Hundley told me for a Herald story before he hit his 34th homer at Wrigley Field in early August. “It’s a physically demanding job and a mentally demanding job.
“To hit 40 catching - in my opinion to hit 20 as a catcher is tough to do. It’s such a physically demanding job.”
Hundley hit 30 in 1997 and had two 24-homer seasons with the Dodgers (1999-2000). He finished with 202 in his 14-year MLB career.