St. Henry’s Easton Zimmerman claims what may yet be the biggest moment of the weekend…his third inning grand slam home run Thursday in 10u play against New Bremen. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
If you want a boost to your spirits, and anticipation for the future of youngsters learning to learn things the right way…take a couple of hours this weekend for the annual Minster Classic for youth baseball and softball.
Minster, OH – Officially, it wasn’t opening night. Wednesday was opening night of the annual Minster Classic for youth baseball and softball this weekend in Minster Ohio.
Which, by the way, is again the reigning home of the Division VII OHSAA state baseball champion Minster Wildcats, who claimed the title just four weeks ago in Akron.
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But, every night is opening night in Minster, the same as it was three weeks ago in Versailles, for the Stammen Classic. It’s a weekend celebration of youth baseball and softball, where you never hear the term ‘select’, or ‘elite’, or ‘travel’, and for their effort the community can claim four state titles in high school baseball in the past fifteen years – 2011, ’12, ’17, and 2025.
Publisher Sonny Fulks writes OHSAA sports and Ohio State baseball for Press Pros Magazine.
Something is working.
By 5:30 the parking lot at Minster’s beautiful complex west of town was was full.
By gametime, 6:15, cars were parked three hundred yards down the road adajcent to the complex. Unlike Versailles, where the weekend event is spread over five or six different locations about Versailles and nearby North Star, the Minster Classic is concentrated over an area of ten acres. And Thursday, at 6:15, it was jammed to see in ten-year-olds and twelve-year-olds play for bracket advantage on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
In a day of pay-to-play baseball for adolescents, Minster, Ohio stands as the antithesis of 12-year-olds paying $2,500 to play on a traveling team for the sake of experience, better competition, and the questionable rationale that to be the best to you have to drive five hours to find and play the best.
Twelve-year-old pitcher Ayden Olberding showed excellent ability and mechanics pitching for Minster’s 12u team.
“We’ve won four state championships in Minster in fifteen years by doing it the way we’re doing it,” said one onlooker, Thursday. “Our kids grow up together, play together, trust each other, and pull for each other. What can possibly be a better [competitive] environment that that?”
And it appears to pay dividends, universally, as teams from twenty five different communities will make their way to Minster this weekend to be a part of what seems to be working for the reigning champions.
In the 10-year-old game Thursday between St. Henry and New Bremen, the St. Henry kids came in fresh from watching their ACME team claim the state championship earlier in the week – the Mt. Everest of summer community baseball titles in west-central and northwest Ohio. St. Henry shortstop Easton Zimmerman, had two older brothers play on that St. Henry team, and his excitement to have his own moment this weekend was palpable.
“My brothers are Austin and Owen, and they played in that game,” said ten-year-old Easton. “They hit good, and it was fun.”
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And motivational, evidently, as Easton, all five feet and 85 pounds of him, came to bat in the third inning with a 3-1 lead over New Bremen and launched a grand slam home run to left center that cleared the fence…220 feet away…by twenty feet. And you can do the math. When you’re ten years old, it was an obvious first, and one to be remembered by son, and father alike.
“It was a Dad moment,” said his father Matt, who played high school baseball at Celina (graduating in ’02), and coaches the 10u team in St. Henry.
Ballboy for the high school team a month ago, Minster’s Bennett Weston squares one up in Thursday’s 12u game against St. Marys.
It was a seminal moment for young Easton. Asked if he could picture himself in such a moment as a state high school title, or an ACME title, six years from now, he calmly answered, “Yeah, probably.”
“I saw the pitch coming,” he said, reminiscent of older players speaking about higher levels of baseball. “I knew when I hit it [that it might go out].”
What a motivational moment. And at ten years old, what would he have to do for the next five years to put himself in that position of being a state champion?
“Practice,” answered Easton, bursting with enthusiasm. “And grow. I want to get to be as big as they are [his brothers].”
One diamond away, the twelve-year-olds from Minster were playing a team from St. Marys, and winning handily behind the impressive pitching effort of Ayden Olberding, a name synonymous in the community for competitive build. Playing first base for the Minster team was Bennett Weston, who just a month ago was in the dugout in Akron as a ballboy as the high school team bested Newark Catholic for the Division VII title and trophy. Weston soaked it all up, the experience, like a sponge.
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“It was awesome,” said Bennett, just moments removed from a run-rule win over the team from St. Marys.
“It was really exciting, the entire time. That’s my dream, to be in that position [four years from now]. I just have to keep working hard at what I do. Baseball is fun,” he added, “but it’s still hard work. And it’s my favorite sport.”
Lest you miss the point, there’s a reason why communities like Versailles and Minster have yearly ‘Classics’ to promote their community baseball, and the reason is purely motivational. No one is excluded for the lack of $2,500 to join an outside travel team, and there is a patience for the process of coaching and the natural maturation whereby physical skills and maturity, and baseball (or softball), come together.
Press Pros review…safe at home plate as the ball rolls away from the catcher during a play in the first inning of Thursday’s 10 u game.
“Every kid is different,” says St. Henry 10u coach Matt Zimmerman. “And that’s part of the reason why I love coaching the kids. Sometimes they make it hard for me, and sometimes they make it easy. But they’re eager to learn, whether they look you in the eye or they look away…they’d rather be here than anywhere else. It’s nice to have that team unity – one school, one team, all their buddies – and that’s awesome.
“At the ACME game the other night…probably three-quarters of this team was there. That’s what it’s all about. The town needed it, these guys wanted it, and that pays dividends down the road for Coach Gast and the high school program.”
And another unique from weekends like the Minster Classic…you see some lopsided scores. But those on the frowning side of the scoreboard are not deterred. They’re innocent enough to understand that playing. and learning, the game is more important, and fun, than the stigmatization of the score. It really is, as Matt Zimmerman says, about being with your buddies and learning together.
Which is why locally…Russia has won a title, Fort Loramie has won three titles, St. Henry has won three, Minster has won four, Coldwater has won seven, and all can point the same formula of home-grown success. Kids grow up watching those ahead of them, and are motivated to share in that success when it’s their turn, and they do it together.
In modern terms…classic less is more!
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