Comebacks

Gene Steinmeyer

I’ve coached Sam, my 16-year-old son, in summer baseball since he was 5 years old. Bob Sundell and I handled it from T-ball through coach pitch and into Little League. Jeff Patton began coaching with me and has continued to do so right through this past summer.

Even if it’s only youth baseball in the summer, things can sometimes get exciting and sometimes downright weird. That happened one night when our 10- or 11-year olds were playing Tri-C, a Little League team out of Jefferson School.

Jefferson had an outstanding pitcher and we found ourselves behind, something like five or six to nothing. However, the pitch count forced Tri-C to change pitcher and we came back to tie the score after six innings, the end of a regular Little League game.

That comeback was pretty cool to a bunch of 10- or 11-year olds, but it got even better. Both teams stayed tied through the seventh, eight, and ninth innings. This was starting to get a little strange. Tri-C finally broke through with three runs at the top of the 10th inning.

I had 10 players on my team. We batted only nine and two players rotated halfway through the game. Jeff and I made sure everyone had to be the players that substituted during the season. I had taken one kid out in the third inning. Now it was the 10th and I figured it was time to get him back into the game. He had been sitting on the bench for seven innings.

In the bottom of the 10th, with one out, I sent that kid to pinch hit. The poor kid wasn’t a good batter and swung at everything. I pulled him aside and told him to take a strike, that we needed baserunners. I don’t think I was very clear, because he swung at the first three pitches, all of them out of the strike zone.

The last one was so bad it got by the catcher and he reached first on the wild pitch. That started the rally and we scored four runs to win in a walk-off. The kid that swung at everything had started the rally with a strikeout.

Comebacks feel so good. The most amazing comeback I ever witnessed came when the Buffalo Bills and their backup quarterback Fran Reich beat the Houston Oilers in a playoff game, 41-38, in overtime. The Bills had trailed 35-3 early in the second half. It’s the greatest playoff comeback in NFL playoff history.

The best comeback of any team I ever coached came in my second year at Northwest. It was in the early-season Winstead-Reeves Classic. Alaska-Anchorage had a local kid playing on their team and had called to see if they could play in our two-game classic. It sounded like a good deal to me.

My dad loved following my basketball teams. He attended all of them when I coached at Doane, always giving the officials more advice than basketball advice to me. Now, he had trouble getting around. My brother brought him down that Saturday night. Dad was forced to use a wheelchair. It would be the last game he would ever see me coach.

Anchorage jumped to a 23-point lead at halftime. The Northwest team was rebuilding after losing 18 games in a row to end my first season. Something clicked and we roared back. The game went to overtime and the Bearcats eventually won. That was a great win for me because Dad had a chance to see it.

Not all comebacks end so well. One of my Doane teams was in the NAIA National Final Four in 1997. Our opponent was a South Dakota college that no longer exists. However, they had dumped a lot of money into athletics.

With eight minutes left, we were trailing by 15 points. That’s when my point guard, Mari Maaske, took over. She scored 15 of the next 17 points, and assisted on the other two. With 15 seconds left, Mari’s running one-hander tied the game.

The next 15 seconds were tough. During the timeout, I diagrammed what play we would see. I guessed right and my team stopped it cold. However, the ball came back to a sophomore post player 18 feet from the basket. Her shot hit the rim twice, the backboard once, and dropped through at the buzzer. It was a great Doane comeback with no rewards.

I love baseball. It is much harder to mount a comeback when trailing in the late innings in baseball. However, the Kansas City Royals have found a way. In their eighth comeback win in two years of playoff baseball, Sam and I watched Saturday as the Royals were trailing 3-0 in the seventh inning.

David Price had the Royals baffled, retiring 18 in a row. Magic was about to fill Kaufman Stadium. It wasn’t a dropped third strike but a misplayed fly ball. That’s all it took and the Royals came back to win, 6-3.

Games like that are great to experience, especially if you are at the game with your son. I hope there are a few more of those wins left for October.