Rancho baseball undergoes revival since stepping onto new field

I was there in the spring of 2008 when Rancho High christened its new baseball field with an alumni game -- older, chubby guys vs. the varsity. I was there because it's easy to have affinity for schools such as Rancho, which struggle to keep up with their suburban contemporaries in sports, mostly due to, well, their "inner-citiness."

I was also there because the affable Tex Anthony had asked me to come out. When guys named Tex turn on the charm, it's hard to say no.

Anthony, who hails from Amarillo, Texas, had coached the Rams to state baseball titles in 1974 and '76, the seventh, eighth and last time Rancho took home the first-place hardware. It was easier to win first-place trophies then; there wasn't as much competition and there wasn't Bishop Gorman. When it opened in 1954, Rancho was one of just three high schools in the valley, along with Las Vegas and Basic.

So there is baseball tradition at Rancho: In one three-year period during the halcyon days, nine Rams were drafted by major league clubs; four -- Marty Barrett, brother Tommy, Mike Maddux and Mike Morgan -- made it all the way to The Show.

Thirty years later, there was mostly broken glass in the infield, left there by the winos and the down-on-their-luck types who would often spend the night at Hartke Park in North Las Vegas, the practice home of the Rams before the new field was built.

For two years, the team played nothing but away games. With all respect due the pro wrestling tag team of  Michael "Hawk" Hegstrand and Joseph "Animal" Laurinaitis, the Rams were Road Warriors in the literal sense, although they were never penalized for carrying foreign objects into the ring.

But Rancho didn't win nearly as often as those guys.

The Rams, in fact, hardly won at all.

It's hard to hit the cutoff man when winos are sprawled across the outfield grass, hard to compete when school boundary lines keep shifting amid the winds of urban sprawl, allowing shortstops and center fielders and pitchers who throw 90 mph heat to enroll at other schools, nicer schools, where kids drive to class instead of ride the bus and most of the girls look like Phoebe Cates in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." Or today's equivalent.

This new field, Tex Anthony said, was going to help. And this new coach, a former Rams player named Tom Pletsch, a member of the junior varsity team the last time Rancho won state in 1976, understood the value of teaching the fundamentals and of paying homage to the past and of literally building something the new players could be proud of.

But this new field was still in the middle of the inner-city. There were apartments beyond the right-field fence. At the suburban schools, about the only things one finds beyond the right-field fence are acres of space, or maybe a Starbucks.

The first guy to bat that day was a former Ram named Mike Villa, neither old nor chubby. There was a loud PING! Then there was a baseball, crushed on one side, bouncing around the apartments on 21st Street, around 400 feet from home plate. And it became apparent, at least to a mostly neutral observer, that if Rancho was going to embark on a baseball renaissance, it might take more than this new diamond.

It might take some players from the other sides of town.

Under the Clark County School District's magnet system, students from outside the Rancho zone are allowed to study in its specialized aviation and medicine programs. More than a third of the Rancho student body --- and 31 of the 34 players in the baseball program -- were chosen via a magnet school lottery based on scholarship and citizenship and, jealous rivals charge, their ability to hit, pitch and catch a baseball, or play other sports.

Pletsch admits were it not for the magnet program, there is no way the Rams would be ranked No. 3 in the state. Socio-economic factors prevent most students who grow up within Rancho's traditional boundaries from playing baseball year-round, or even purchasing the equipment it takes to play; upon returning as coach, Pletsch was alarmed to find only eight used-up bats in the Rancho equipment bag. Don't even ask about the condition of the catcher's gear.

The first year on the new field, the Rams went 17-16. Last year, Rancho lost to Bishop Gorman in the state title game after beating the Gaels to get there. This year, the Rams are 28-4, after pulling out a 5-4 victory in the bottom of the seventh inning against Liberty in Monday's Sunrise Region playoffs.

In Pletsch's first year as coach in 2006, Rancho won six games and lost 19. Over the past three years, it has won 88 and lost 17. This is a renaissance of Machiavellian proportions.

Bishop Gorman, of course, has this thing about standing high and mighty in the face of any renaissance.

But as daylight faded to dusk on a brisk and overcast Monday afternoon, the Rancho High baseball team had recalled its glorious past by winning another game in dramatic fashion. It had given the baseball bards something to think about.

Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.