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Home  / News & Publications /  Michigan Catholic News / 2009 /  Team reunion

by Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
Published August 28, 2009

Robert Delaney | The Michigan Catholic Gerry Ratkewicz, a member of the 1959 Junior World's Series-winning team, holds the special Louisville Slugger bat he received commemorating the team's victory.

Plymouth - Gerry Ratkewicz believes the teamwork and discipline he learned in Catholic school helped him when his team went all the way to win the 1959 American Legion Baseball World Series.

"One of the biggest things was the discipline," says Ratkewicz, now a member of St. Thomas à Becket Parish in Canton Township.

Ratkewicz was between his junior and senior years at Detroit Catholic Central High School when he was selected for the Detroit Edison Post 187 American Legion team that became the first (and up until this year, the only) Michigan team to win the national championship in American Legion baseball (Midland Berry Hill Post 165 won the 2009 championship just last week).

And Ratkewicz was by no means the only player on that team who had benefited from the moral and educational rigor of Catholic schools. Eight teammates were fellow CC students and two were from Benedictine High School. Both schools were in northwest Detroit in those days.

And their coach, Art Kohn, also had a history with Catholic schools, having been the baseball coach at Christ the King in northwest Detroit in the mid-1950s, where he led the team to the Catholic Youth Organization championship three years in a row, and where Detroit Edison Post 187 team members Fred Fleming and Denny Sinclair played for him.

"We also learned to have respect for out teachers and coaches, and to not be prima donnas who put themselves above the team. We respected our own team's players and our opponents," Ratkewicz says of the values inculcated into young scholar-athletes in Catholic schools.

He had been involved in organized sports since he began playing CYO football when he was in the sixth grade at St. Luke Elementary School in Detroit.

American Legion baseball is still going strong today, but used to figure more prominently in the American baseball scene before so many pro ballplayers started coming from Central and South America. Both the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit Times had reporters travel with the Post 187 team.

"Up through the 1970s, 50 percent of the players who made it to the majors played Legion ball," Ratkewicz says.

He recalls how he tried out for the team at the suggestion of his coach at CC, Fr. Joe Miller, CSB, and how being selected for it began a summer filled with "a lot of first experiences."

"Being on a team with players from different parts of the city and different schools for the first time, and first time I'd spent a night in a hotel, the first time traveling on a bus up to the U.P. - to save money, we bivouacked at Marquette State Prison for a few days," Ratkewicz recounts.

"We were on the road for 23 days, and when we flew out of Willow Run to the finals in Hastings, Neb., for most of us that was our first time on a plane," he continues.

Another thing Catholic school had prepared Ratkewicz for was working with teammates of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. "The only thing I cared about was: could they play ball? Could they hit, field, catch and run?" he says.

Belle Isle was the location for the Detroit Edison Post 187 team's first game and for the state playoffs, in which they beat a team from Midland. After that, they won the sectional title in Normal, Ill., the regionals in Rockport, Ind., and then the national finals in Nebraska.

Playing in the stadium of a San Francisco Giants-affiliated minor league team in Hastings, "We lost our first game, but then we came back to win the next six games and win the national championship," Ratkewicz says.

After finishing his senior year, he went to the University of Buffalo on a football scholarship, with some college football fans still remembering how he scored the winning touchdown in a 1963 game against Colgate, then kicked the extra point.

After graduating, he came back to the Detroit area, got married, earned a Master of Business Administration from the University of Detroit, and then had a career in sales, mostly with Xerox. He retired last year from Tata Technologies.

Photo by Jeff Weiser Surviving members of the 1959 American Legion National Champions Detroit Edison Post 187 team (and associates) are (front row, from left) Coach Art Kohn, George Hanley, Steve Vigh (batboy), Fred Bowen, Ron Balatero, Denny Sinclair, Richard Miller, Morris Moorawnick (reporter and statistician); (back row, from left) Billy Pierce (former Chicago White Sox pitcher), Bill Zepp (former Minnesota Twins and Detroit Tigers pitcher), Raymond Rolak, Fred Fleming, Jim Saskewitch, Gerry Ratkewicz and Tom Recca.

The 14 surviving members of that Junior World Series championship team from a half-century ago have been brought together this summer for a 50-year reunion that has included several events, culminating in their attendance at Comerica Park on Monday, Aug. 31, when they will be recognized in a 12:45 p.m. pre-game ceremony.

Then, team member Richard Miller will throw out the first pitch of the Detroit Tigers vs. Tampa Bay Rays game.

The reunion events have been organized by Raymond Rolak, a former scout for the St. Louis Cardinals and youth baseball administrator, and member of St. Scholastica Parish in northwest Detroit.

"One of the team members, Fred Bowen, was a real good mentor to me," says Rolak, who is now involved in the production of sports videos.

Rolak says Fr. Miller at CC and Benedictine coach John Cullen "really helped prepare the players from their schools for this high caliber of competition."

"They were 'old school' coaches, where plenty of drill in the fundamentals made the player," he adds.

Team Roster Detroit Edison archives photo Members of the Detroit Edison Post 187 team and their coaches after disembarking at Willow Run Airport after winning the 1959 American Legion National Championship. The 1959 American Legion Baseball Series-winning Detroit Edison Post 187 team included: Ron Balatero (Western) Terry Barden (Catholic Central) d. Fred Bowen (Western) Mark Esper (Catholic Central) d. Fred Fleming (Benedictine) Ed Hagen (Catholic Central) George Hanley (Catholic Central) Arnie Jent (Catholic Central) d. Bill Marciniak (Catholic Central) Richard Miller (Western) Jerry Morrissey (Benedictine) d. Gerry Ratkewicz (Catholic Central) Tom Recca (Catholic Central) Jim Saskewitch (Western) Denny Sinclair (Catholic Central) Bill Takacs (Western) d. denotes deceased