If they only could have gotten out of the sixth or the eighth innings…any team that gets close to a national championship and comes back empty-handed has those sort of "what ifs."  The 1997 Carthage College baseball team, led by the most improbable starting pitcher in Firebirds history, was almost in the driver's seat for a national title at that year's NCAA Division III Baseball Championship.  Almost.  Let's back it up to December 1996.  No, let's back it up even farther.
 
Jim Miller arrived on the Carthage campus in September 1993 as tall, gangly 6-6 and 195 pounds.  He was on the junior varsity basketball roster his freshman year and worked his way into a reserve role on the varsity as a sophomore in 1995, appearing in 19 games and averaging 3.2 points per game.  He might have eventually played his way into some sort of a role when coach Bosko Djurickovic took over in 1996, but what Jim really wanted to do was to play baseball.  He tried.  He tried out his freshman year as a first baseman, and coach Augie Schmidt IV pretty much told him he ought to stick with basketball.  He tried again the following year as an outfielder, and the results still weren't much better.
 
Not to be discouraged, Miller figured his only other shot was to pitch, which he did for Carthage's 1996 junior varsity team.  Pitching wasn't totally new for Miller, who had worked on the hill at Prospect High School in Des Plaines, Ill., where he went 23-2 over his final two years and was named All-Mid Suburban League South both years.  "In the fall of 1996, I was pretty unsure, if I was even going to make the 1997 team," admitted Miller.  Somewhere along the line, Miller came up with the pitch of the 1980s and 1990s, a split-fingered fastball.  Suddenly, he was almost unhittable.  When coach Schmidt talked about him in December 1996, he said, "Jim may be our biggest surprise this year.  At times, he's our most effective pitcher, and he's certainly developed to the point where he'll get some innings this year."  Wow.
 

He was effective, all right.  He made his first-ever varsity start on March 21 in Panama City, Fla., winning a 7-6 game over Grand View College.  He didn't lose again until he dropped a relief appearance in the third round of the NCAA Division III Baseball Championship, winning 10-straight games.  He finished the season with a 10-1 mark, a 1.80 earned run average and 81 strikeouts in 80.0 innings pitched and a .203 opponent batting average.  He was named first-team All-CCIW, second-team American Baseball Coaches Association All-American and was selected by the Milwaukee Brewers in the 10th round of that year's Major League Baseball draft.  Ah, but we're getting ahead of the story.
 
The 1997 team may have had something to prove.  The previous season was big disappointment.  After winning three CCIW championships in five years, winning three-straight Central Regional titles, and finishing third twice and fourth once at the NCAA Division III Baseball Championship, the 1996 team collapsed down the stretch.  After escaping with an 11-10 win over Illinois Wesleyan University in the first round of the CCIW Baseball Tournament at the Carthage Baseball Field, the Firebirds lost successive games to North Central College and Augustana College (Ill.) and were the first team eliminated from the tournament.  With a 34-8 record, the Firebirds still got a berth in the NCAA championship, but the late-season fade continued.  Still playing at home, this time at Simmons Field in Kenosha, Wis., Carthage lost its first-round game to Aurora University before being eliminated in the second round by fourth-seeded MacMurray College.
 
The 1997 team rolled into the CCIW Baseball Tournament with a 34-5 record and a 17-game winning streak, third-best in the Carthage record book.  Carthage won its first game in the tournament over Elmhurst College before bowing out with losses to Illinois Wesleyan and Elmhurst.  Carthage still received a berth in the NCAA championship, but this time things worked out a little better.  At the Central Regional championship in Carroll, Iowa, a scrappy Aurora team forced the Firebirds into playing the tournament's seventh game, and Carthage came back twice to overcome Spartan leads.  The Firebirds prevailed with a 15-10 victory and earned their fourth trip to the national championship.  "It was a whirlwind kind of season," said Miller.  "We rolled over some pretty good teams in Florida and followed that with a solid CCIW season.  The regional was a little bit iffy after the first game, and we had to come on late to beat Aurora in the championship game.  At the start of the national championship, I thought we were going to roll right through that." 

Carthage was making its fourth appearance at the national championship.  Both the 1993 and 1994 teams finished third at C.O. Brown Stadium in Battle Creek, Mich., while the 1995 squad finished fourth at Municipal Stadium in Salem, Va.
 
At the 1997 national championship at Memorial Baseball Stadium in Salem, Va., Carthage won its first-round game, 6-4, over the State University of New York-Cortland.  In the second round, the

Firebirds punished in-state rival Wisconsin-Stevens Point, 12-1, as Shorty Flees drove in three runs, and lefty Tim Pulizzano scattered nine singles and walked none over nine innings.  For the first time in four trips to the national championship, the Firebirds had reached the third round without a loss.  Most years, the winner of that third-round game is in the driver's seat to win a national title.  For awhile on May 26, it looked like that's exactly where the Firebirds were headed.
 
Facing the other undefeated team, the University of Southern Maine, Carthage took a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the third inning.  Ryan Lessner led off with a triple, and one out later, scored on an infield grounder off the bat of Shorty Flees.  With two outs, Dean Muthig and Gavin Winfield both singled, and Muthig scored on a single by Lew Malczewski.  The Firebirds made it a 3-0 game in the fourth on an RBI-single by Flees that scored Eric Carstensen.  Meanwhile, Carthage starting pitcher Will Madson was cruising, having allowed just two singles through the first five innings. 
 
Things came unraveled for Madson in the sixth.  Southern Maine loaded the bases on two singles and a hit batter to open the inning, and Ken Reed's sacrifice fly got the Huskies on the board.  Rich Cahill singled in a run to make it a 3-2 game, and coach Schmidt summoned Mark Kruckeberg to relieve Madson.  Mike McCullon greeted Kruckeberg with a two-run double, and Southern Maine led, 4-3.  The Firebirds re-gained the lead, 5-4, in the seventh.  Carthage loaded the bases on a single, a walk and an infield error.  Joe Smith's sacrifice fly scoring Dean Muthig tied the game.  Rick Ramczyk was walked intentionally to load the bases, and Brian Bahn drove in the go-ahead run with an infield grounder scoring Gavin Winfield. 
 
Miller, who had started two days earlier in the first-round win over the SUNY-Cortland, came in to pitch the eighth inning.  He was greeted by a pair of singles and a sacrifice bunt, putting Huskies on second and third with one out.  Carthage walked the next batter to set up a possible double play, but instead, Greg Michaud "inside-outed" a two-run single to rightfield to give Southern Maine a 6-5 lead.  "Will Madson had done a great job keeping Southern Maine at bay for six innings," remembers Schmidt.  "When things started to slip away in the eighth inning, Jim Miller probably needed another few minutes to get loose, but I didn't think I had that luxury.  With the Southern Maine hitters, you could see the floodgates could open really, really fast.  If I could do that inning over again, I would have left Kruckeberg in for one more hitter to let Miller get really loose."  Miller thought he was ready.  "I didn't have any doubt that I was ready to pitch that eighth inning," he said.  "I had a rubber arm, and it was the first year I'd pitched since high school.  I did the same thing at the regional, working nine innings in the first game and coming back to pitch in relief on the last day."
 
Southern Maine pitcher Joe Roach, who entered the game in the seventh, got the Firebirds out in order in the eighth.  In the Carthage ninth, Joe Smith doubled with two outs, but Rick Ramczyk grounded back to Roach for the final out of the game.  "We gave Southern Maine everything we had," said coach Schmidt.  "That was the team we wanted to beat to win the title.  It just didn't turn out quite right.  We were right there, right where we wanted to be, playing a game that for all practical purposes is for the national title.  You don't know if you'll ever get another chance to be 3-0 in the national championship  We played at as a high a level as we could.  The way we came back to win the regional sort of exemplified what kind of team we had.  It was the kind of team you love to coach."  "Southern Maine certainly appeared to be our only threat that week," echoed Miller.  "and nobody on our team thought we were going to lose a game at the national tournament."
 
The next day, in an elimination game, Carthage got a brilliant effort from starting pitcher Bryon Gaddy, but the Firebirds lost to the College of Wooster, 2-1.  Gaddy and Wooster pitcher Matt Rodgers were hooked up in a 1-1 duel in the seventh inning before the Fighting Scots' Jeff Nowoczynski hit a one-out, RBI-single to give Wooster the lead.  Rodgers retired the Firebirds, in order, in both the eighth and ninth innings, and Carthage went home with a fourth-place finish.
 
Miller wasn't the only star of that team.  The Firebirds were armed with enough quality arms to win a national title.  Crafty senior-lefty Tim Pulizzano went 9-1 with a

2.36 earned run average and was named first-team All-CCIW and second-team all-regional.  Senior-right hander Will Madson went 5-1 with a 4.85 ERA and was named second-team All-CCIW.  Senior Gavin Winfield went 4-3 with a 4.97 ERA and was named first-team all-conference, and junior Bryon Gaddy went 6-3 with a 2.57 ERA.  "I thought Bryon Gaddy out-pitched everyone at the NCAA championship," said Schmidt.  "He was our number-five pitcher all year, but a lot of teams in that championship would have taken him in a heartbeat."
 

On the field, junior third baseman Dean Muthig was named first-team All-CCIW and second-team all-regional with a .443 batting average, 23 doubles, 11 home runs and 62 RBI.  Freshman centerfielder Joe Smith hit .361 with 50 runs scored and 11 stolen bases in the leadoff spot.  Rightfielder  Shorty Flees punctuated a terrific Carthage career by being named ABCA All-American for the third-straight year, as well as CCIW "Player of the Year" with a .380 batting average, 17 doubles, 13 home runs and 62 RBI.  Junior first baseman Rick Ramczyk batted .329 with 16 doubles, 13 home runs and 43 RBI, while sophomore second baseman Ryan Lessner hit .354 with 11 doubles.  "One guy I really remember," said Miller, "is Lewis Malczewski (14-for-29, .483), who had been with the team a long time without a chance to play.  He got an opportunity late that season, and it seemed like he came through with a hit every time he came up."

On a side note, Pat Bloom was a member of the Firebirds' bullpen in both 1997 and 1998.  Bloom (551-231-1 entering the 2022 season) has been the head baseball coach at Washington University (Mo.) since 2016 after 12 years in the same role at Wisconsin-Stevens Point.  Bloom is ranked 42nd among active NCAA Division III coaching leaders entering the 2022 season. 

 

"While the 1997 team wasn't as talented as some of the other squads we've had here," says Schmidt, "it was a great story with Jim Miller coming out of nowhere and having the best year of any pitcher we've ever had.  He wasn't even a junior varsity player his freshman year, and all of the sudden, he's an ABCA All-American and a 10th round draft pick.  I'll never forget that turnaround, which fits in perfectly with our philosophy of never giving up on anyone.  Jim taught us all a lesson that kids progress at different stages in college."
 
"What I remember most about 1997," said Schmidt, "is the war we fought with Southern Maine.  Southern Maine was probably the best team I've seen since I've been coaching at the NCAA Division III level.  The night before we played them, we watched them pound somebody 20-0.  I told somebody we ought to get our kids out of there, because they're going to intimidated the next day.  But our guys couldn't have cared less—they did not care who they were playing, they were going to get after them.  There were so many back-and-forth things in that game, and we almost pulled it off.  That team accepted challenges—they were just mentally tough.  From the outside looking in, you wouldn't have thought the 1997 team could have accomplished what it did, but it seemed like the bigger the odds against us, the better we did."  Miller summed it up in 2006:  "It was a great team and a great bunch of guys."