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Fifty years ago, Northwest Missouri State University witnessed one of its greatest seasons in Bearcat athletics history, and one that remains the best finish for its baseball program.
In April, players from that era of Bearcat baseball gathered for a reunion and were celebrated by the program’s current players and staff.
“It was good to see those guys,” said Bill Krejci, who played baseball for the Bearcats from 1971 through 1973 and returned as an assistant coach for the 1975 and 1976 seasons. “A lot of those guys I hadn’t seen since I actually coached them.”
Alumni of the Northwest baseball program who played under Coach Jim Wasem during the 1970s gathered for a reunion in April to commemorate the 50th anniversary of their regional championship season and were recognized at a Bearcat baseball game. (Submitted photo)
The Bearcat baseball program concluded its 1974 season with 27 wins and 13 losses, finishing with the best record in its history to that point. In the MIAA, the Bearcats finished 5-5 and tied for third place, losing three of those games by one-run margins in extra innings.
But the program led by Jim Wasem – who became its head coach before the 1973 season after success at Illinois State University and Monmouth College in Illinois – was just beginning its upswing. All but three players on the squad returned for 1975, including pitchers Bob Peterson, Gus Curry, Bill Aten and Art Albin, who tossed a no-hitter during the 1974 season.
“You could see that winning tradition almost start immediately when Coach Wasem stepped on campus, and of course it continued for his entire tenure there,” Krejci said.
Krejci, who was ready to quit baseball after his junior season, was rejuvenated by Wasem’s arrival. Krejci earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Northwest and then devoted his career to coaching baseball – a trajectory he says would not have occurred without Wasem’s influence as well as his ever-present wife, Jean.
After coaching stints at Northwest and Council Bluffs, Iowa, Krejci spent 22 years at the helm of the baseball program at Southwestern Community College in Creston, Iowa. In 1996, he became involved with USA Baseball and continues to coach national teams, in addition to conducting baseball clinics throughout the Midwest.
“I was in my fifth year of college,” Krejci said. “I said, ‘Hey, you know, I need to graduate, move on with my life. Well, he (Wasem) got on board, and he just lit the fire under me again about playing baseball. And of course, in my career, the rest is pretty much history. I’ve coached baseball my entire life because of Coach Wasem and Mrs. Wasem.”
The 1975 Bearcat baseball team possessed a potent offense that finished with a 33-9 record and drew boisterous crowds to their home games. (Tower yearbook photo)
In 1975, the Bearcats improved further under Wasem’s leadership, rolling to a 10-2 record against MIAA opponents. The regular season also featured a two-game sweep against the University of Missouri-Columbia and wins against Creighton University and the University of Kansas at a time when it was not uncommon for Division II schools to match up against more prominent non-conference programs.
Strong hitting and base running were keys to the team’s success. The Bearcats stole 123 bases while holding their opponents to just 27. Outfielder Jim Smith led the offense in batting average (.386), hits (54), home runs (7) and triples (3), and he led the nation in RBIs, earning the MIAA MVP award and an All-America honorable mention.
On the pitcher’s mound, Aten, an All-America honorable mention, was a perfect 8-0, and Peterson was 5-2 while freshmen Bob Downs, Mark Vansickle and David Hanson combined for an 8-1 record. Aten also led the team with 76.2 innings pitched and 55 strikeouts.
To his players, Wasem was a disciplinarian who emphasized fundamental play and required his team to sprint on and off the field. Several players on Wasem’s first teams at Northwest had followed him to Maryville after developing an appreciation for his coaching style, either playing for him or against him in Illinois.
“Coach Wasem was very energetic, and it was just fun to be around him in practice,” said Bill Babcock, a player on Northwest’s 1974 and 1975 baseball teams. “He kept everybody moving, and there wasn’t too much standing around. He was pretty honest with everybody.”
Said Mike Miltenberger, a pitcher on the 1974 and 1975 teams. ”He was a dynamo. … Just full of energy and very knowledgeable of the game and just a great person to play for.”
The Bearcats wore white shoes with their uniforms like the mighty Oakland A’s of the same era, and the winning program drew similarly boisterous crowds to Bearcat Baseball Field.
“We started to invite fraternities to come out, and we named them the ‘Bleacher Bums,’ and of course that year we were winning,” Krejci said. “It’s a lot easier to be a bleacher bum when you’re winning rather than when you’re losing. But he (Wasem) started that right away, as soon as he got on campus, trying to energize the community and, obviously, the student body. … It was a tough place to play.”
In mid-May, the Bearcats opened the Midwest Regional tournament, their second appearance in three seasons, in Brookings, South Dakota, with a 6-4 win against the University of Nebraska-Omaha. Then, they beat the University of Missouri-St. Louis in back-to-back games by scores of 10-2 and 11-10 to win the regional championship.
In the Sunday finale on May 18, No. 14-ranked Northwest pulled off a miraculous comeback to defeat No. 2-ranked St. Louis, which had won the regional championship two of the previous three years. Trailing by a score of 10-2 after just one inning, Curry took the pitcher’s mound in relief and held St. Louis scoreless for the ensuing 6 1/3 innings. With home runs by Steve Wheat and Jim McBride, Northwest closed the scoring gap to 10-9 as the game entered the ninth inning.
McBride led off the last inning with a single. Then designated hitter Joe Pascuzzi doubled down the right field line, scoring McBride for the tying run. After a fly out, catcher Randy Blake knocked a triple into the right-centerfield gap, scoring Pascuzzi for the go-ahead run. Miltenberger, who secured the last two outs of the eighth inning, shut down St. Louis in the bottom of the ninth.
“Randy Blake was catching, and we ended up striking the guy out to close the game with a breaking ball, actually,” Miltenberger said. “The curveball and slider usually breaks the right-hander to the left. This thing kind of went the opposite direction and went to the right a little bit, just in the right place.”
The Bearcats hit nine home runs and batted .379 in their regional games. It was the first regional championship for any Bearcat athletics team in the school’s history.
“I don’t think anybody expected us to win that regional, but we had a good weekend and got the job done,” Babcock said.
In the six-team national tournament, beginning Saturday, May 31, in Springfield, Illinois, Northwest won its first game, 6-2, against Southeastern Louisiana. The Bearcats then dropped two games on Monday, June 2 – first, a 2-1 loss against top-ranked Florida Southern, and then a 6-1 elimination game loss to Marietta. In the national championship game, Florida Southern defeated Marietta, 10-7.
“We were a very good offensive team,” Krejci said. “We had good pitching, don’t get me wrong, but we were an offensive juggernaut. To be shut out by Florida Southern and then by Marietta was kind of a shock to the system.”
Northwest’s 33-9 record – with a .785 win percentage – remains the program’s best in the NCAA Division II era. Its regional championship that led to an appearance in the NCAA Division II baseball championship tournament has not been duplicated.
“That’s obviously what you want to do,” Miltenberger said. “Having seen what the football program has done and the basketball program’s done at Northwest is pretty impressive, but to think that we went further than any other baseball team had or has is kind of satisfying.”
At the end of the season, Wasem was honored as the MIAA Coach of the Year. He coached the Bearcats for nine seasons, none of which ended with a losing record, and compiled a 221-119 record for a .650 winning percentage. He was inducted into Northwest’s M-Club Hall of Fame in 2010 and passed away in 2022.
“Working together with people and having somebody, a motivator like Coach Wasem was very special,” said Miltenberger, who had a 30-year career in banking and became president of Danville State Savings Bank in Iowa before retiring in 2017. “Some people look at sports as just something to do, but I think there are a lot of life skills that can be learned from participating and then having somebody like him motivate you.”
Added Babcock, who joined and operated his family’s sewer and drain cleaning service for 50 years in Peoria, Illinois, “We all had dreams like that to keep playing in college and hopefully after, but it was a great experience for me, and I'm just happy to go through it with those guys.”
