Deal falls apart

NEW ULM -- A contract that would have made Terry Steinbach a Seattle Mariner for 10 days fell through late Sunday afternoon.

The deal would have been a 10-day, $100,000 contract for the former Minnesota Twin and Oakland A's catcher.

Incidentally, Bob Watson the former Yankee general manager and now Olympic coordinator, was in Dassel to watch Steinbach play last week.

Steinbach will remain playing for the New Ulm Kaiserhoff this year.

KLAVITER LOWERS ERA: Steph Klaviter, playing for the Florida Wahoos of the Women's Professional Softball League, has a 5-1 record, which is tied for the league lead. Of her five wins, four have been shutouts. In 37 innings, she has allowed only 10 hits and walked just three. Her ERA,which was 0.23, has dropped to an amazing 0.19, lowest in the league.

She is tied for the lead in strikeouts with 31.

PARENTS COMPLAIN ABOUT BOE: A group of parents at Redwood Valley High School have voiced their concern about Cardinal head baseball coach Denny Boe. According to Wayne Cook of the Marshall Independent, a group of these parents met with Redwood Valley school officials and presented several violations of the Minnesota State High School League Code of Ethics.

Two pages of complaints were presented to school officials and students involved will be interviewed about the complaints.

One parent, Betty Arnett, said of the use of profanity -- "There were many incidents that parents or kids from the other teams have mentioned this."

Another is the coach (Boe) influencing kids to play legion baseball in the summer for Redwood Falls or not be considered for the varsity team next (baseball) season.

"We always have promising players in ninth grade," she said. "By the time that they are seniors, there might be a few of them on the team. Others choose other sports; the question is why."

That brings up something interesting. Recently, I was watching a sports channel out of Florida, the Sunshine Sports Network, and they had a story on a basketball program that, once strong, had slowly started to fall.

The story said that the youth programs, once the strength and foundation of their success, had become more interested in winning than practicing and teaching and stressing the fundamentals.

The story said that the youth program played game after game but did not hold practices because there simply wasn't time. Mistakes were made on the court, bad habits begun, and fundamentals that had been stressed in the past suddenly were second to winning and playing games.

This may be a sore subject here in New Ulm where baseball is king. But I have talked to two high school baseball coaches here in New Ulm and the agreement is that fundamentally, the play has dropped off dramatically in recent years.

If you have watched baseball being played, you have probably also noticed that fundamentals, once the strength of baseball in New Ulm, has dropped off dramatically.

Maybe we should stress fundamentals at the younger ages rather than playing games and tournaments each night and weekend. You can't correct mistakes or teach a player during games or tournaments.

TWO GRAND SLAMS IN CLASSIC: This year's Upper Midwest Classic was perhaps the most balanced in recent years and featured some good baseball. Two grand slams in the same day occurred -- one by Omaha's Ben Deas and the other by New Ulm Gold's Craig Spelbrink at Johnson Park.

Sault Ste. Marie, which always makes the 13-hour trek to New Ulm, does not have a league to play in. Rather, they play once a week against a Canadian team from Sault Ontario and then travel on weekends to play in tournaments ... Ben Deas of Omaha will walk on at Nebraska next year ... Mike Torrez, a coach with Omaha, had to leave suddenly and go back to Omaha when his wife went into labor early Sunday morning ... Omaha, which won the Classic this year, won the Nebraska Big School High School baseball title this past spring. All of the players played for Burke High School and should be tough next year as they lose only three starters ... Duluth Lakeview won the Sportsmanship Trophy this year in the Classic.

FAN APPRECIATION WEEKEND: This year, the New Ulm Baseball Association will have a Fan Appreciation Weekend July 15-16.

On Saturday, July 16, when the Kaiserhoff hosts Dundas, there will be free pizza for all in attendance courtesy of Happy Joe's and the NUBA. Then on Sunday, July 16, the Schell's Hobo Band will play at Smiley's Tavern from 4:30-6:30. Ted Marti of August Schell Brewing will be the emcee. Fans can then head down to Johnson Park for the 7:30 games that night when they host Sleepy Eye.

Incidentally, Tuesday, July 18 at Johnson Park will feature a rematch of sorts when Tom Wheeler and Brian Filzen of KNUJ Radio go at it head-to-head, or rather stomach-to-stomach, in a pizza-eating contest.

Both contestants will be allowed three minutes to consume all of the pizza that they can handle.

Wheeler is seeking revenge from his loss to Filzen in a Sump Wrestling contest earlier this year, but Filzen has been seen secretly training at local smorgasbords.

Column by Jim Bastian, Journal sports writer