'I don't take any of this for granted'

FINDLAY -- There were a lot of successes for the Flag City Sluggers, a first-year baseball team in the Great Lakes Summer Collegiate League. A team full of college baseball players from across the country, the Sluggers banded together to nearly make the playoffs, something virtually unheard of in the GLSCL. Despite players from all walks of life from vastly different parts of the country, one thing brought them together: their love of the national pastime. Boasting players from 12 different states and even Canada, Flag City became home to a unique group of ballplayers for the summer. For two of them, though, home was right down the street. Pitcher Ben Best and catcher Andrew Stechschulte are each natives of Findlay and play together at Ohio Northern University in Ada. While already not very far from home during the college baseball season, the two of them got the pleasure of representing their hometown in the Sluggers' inaugural year. Despite narrowly missing out on the postseason, the Sluggers made great strides not only in the field, but in the community as well. Having local players like Best and Stechschulte certainly made an impact in that regard. "It was awesome, and I don't take those opportunities for granted," Best said. "Joe (Fenimore, president of the Sluggers), the interns, everyone involved, did a great job of bringing people to the Cube, getting people involved, keeping the crowd active. I didn't take that for granted at all, I'm sure it was an incredible experience for them. It did feel surreal at times, going in there and seeing that many people at games. I give Joe, everyone on the board, and all the interns credit for that because they did an amazing job with the atmosphere.""It was awesome. The first day especially, we didn't have many expectations on what was gonna happen," Stechschulte added. "There could be 30 people show up, there could be the, what, 600 people that showed up the first day. That was kind of amazing, the community really did support us, that made us excited. The numbers were pretty consistent, we had a good crowd almost every day. Some of them sat through some pretty terrible weather days. The community really showed up, it was pretty awesome."Best and Stechschulte took slightly different routes to "Flag City", despite how close it actually was. "I saw through social media that the Sluggers were coming to town," Best said. "I heard about them and was really interested, I thought it sounded like a lot of fun. I emailed Joe and I emailed coach (Tyler) Smith, and I told them I'm a collegiate pitcher. They reached back (out) to me, they both said they need pitching for the year, we'd love to have you, it's great to have hometown kids on the roster. It kind of all came together from there, and I was able to sign with them in the spring.""I was referenced by one of my assistant coaches," Stechschulte said. "They had talked to coach Smith, and pretty much said, 'Hey, you want to play summer ball, this is a good opportunity to do so.' So, I just took it.""It went better than I expected it to go, to be honest," Stechschulte continued. "There really was no expectation of what was gonna happen. You don't know how coaches are gonna get kids, where they're gonna come from, how good they're gonna be. I was kind of surprised how good our team was."The opportunities paid off and them some. Not only was playing for the Sluggers beneficial to their conditioning and development, but it also helped form some friendships and bonds with players from completely different backgrounds. Even though the players all had "host families" from the area, having two local guys on the roster gave the other players someone to lean on."I can speak for the pitchers, a couple of them it was a culture shock at the start," Best said. "We had some kids from California, kids from Florida, Tennessee, that came here. They were like, 'It's Findlay, Ohio, what do we do here? What can we do during the day? What kind of stuff do you guys have here?' I gave them some spots, gave them some tips on what to do around here. I've been here my whole life, so I was able to help them out in that regard.""A lot of them said that they loved the experience and they loved being a Slugger," Best continued. "It was awesome to be able to interact with them. We talked to each other, the pitchers, about how we can gain velocity, different pitches. Being able to learn from one another was pretty cool. We all respected each other, we had a lot of different arm angles and different velocities. Being able to come together, discussing pitching and what was successful for us, I think we all reflected that we developed nicely over the summer, and that was a big reason why."Overall, both Best and Stechschulte had a favorable experience with the Sluggers organization. They both go back to college baseball having learned, and having experienced life on an expansion team. While they may be a tad biased, they were highly complimentary of Flag City. When asked if they'd recommend the Sluggers to a collegiate baseball player looking for a home in summer ball, their answers were quick and easy."Oh, absolutely," Best said. "This was 100-percent a successful experience for me. I loved it, it was amazing. I don't take any of this for granted. Being able to sign baseballs for kids, having lots of fans in the stands, having my family there, all of these things just accumulated into a successful summer for me personally. I know as a team we fell short a little bit at the end, but we were young. We can learn from that, learn from those experiences, and come back even stronger.""Absolutely, I would," Stechschulte said. "You have a couple of former professional coaches, it's a very relaxed atmosphere but they try and make it as professional as possible. College can be hard at times, it's a lot more stressful, but with this group of coaches, Smith, Geoff Freeborn, Cael (Magill), they just made it really fun to go to the ballpark every day. I wouldn't recommend anybody else."