. . . I played freshman baseball with Mike Schmidt and I was on the varsity a couple years as a bench warmer and batting practice pitcher. I like to think I helped make Mike Schmidt the hitter that he was. The pitchers back then as I remember that took us to the College World Series were Eddie Robbins and Bill Claus. John Morlan was an outfielder with a canon for an arm. I believe he signed with Pittsburgh as a pitcher.
This reminds me that I once took credit, in a joking manner, for Todd Snyder's pass catching ability. Todd was four years younger than I was, and when I was in high school and he in junior high we used to play pickup football games on the top of the Highland Avenue Reservoir. Because I was one of the older guys playing, I would often play QB. When Todd won the award as AP Lineman of the Week in Ohio's 35-35 tie with Minnesota 1969, I saw him on campus and told him that his passing catching ability was honed by learning to catch my wobbly and often oft-target passes. He sort of smiled and laughed, probably just to humor me.
Todd caught something like three or four TD passes in that game with Minnesota. Todd's position was called split end in those days and, therefore, he was classified as a lineman. Today, he would be considered a WR.
[So that neither SBH nor his soulmate bobcatsquared say that I'm making this up, I better explain why I was on campus the same year that Todd was when we had this difference in age. I had two years of active duty in the U.S. Navy between my sophomore and junior years, and then when I graduated with my BSJ in 1968 I went to O$U for my master's degree; the following year I was back at OHIO doing additional graduate work at OHIO. So, Todd was a senior and I was a graduate student.]
Last Edited: 3/24/2023 12:57:11 AM by OhioCatFan