Once Upon a Time

I wasn't notified about this, perhaps because I wasn't one of the team's stars, but my 1971 junior college baseball team (Linn-Benton Roadrunners) was inducted into the Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges (NWAACC) Hall of Fame in 2011.

That was the 40th anniversary of LBCC's founding and start of its baseball program.

I'm fourth from the left in the back row of the pic.

We won the Oregon Community College Athletic Association (OCCAA) championship that first season, and just missed going to the eight-team JC National Championship playoff in Colorado Springs when our centerfielder dropped--flat dropped--what should have been the final out in our regional championship game against Mt. Hood C.C.

Instead, two Mt. Hood runners scored and we ended up losing the game.

All and all, not bad for a team that attended classes in modular trailers next to the school's construction site and played its home games on local high school fields in and near Albany, Oregon.

The OCCAA merged with Washington's JC athletic association to form the NWAACC in 1983.

I wonder if somebody owes me a plaque or certificate of acknowledgement?   I think my grandson ought to have one or the other if it exists.  He just started playing pee-wee T-ball in Minnesota.


TS