- Lafayette Jeff won IHSAA baseball titles in 1969 and 1973
- Coach Paul "Spider" Fields posted a 404-70-1 record in 16 seasons
- The Bronchos were 29-6 in 1969 and 37-8 in 1973
- The IHSAA state baseball tournament started in 1967
Bill Olds watched his childhood idols climb aboard the city fire truck in 1964 after Lafayette Jeff won the basketball state championship and again in 1969 when the Bronchos claimed the state baseball title.
His moment came in 1973.
“I’m getting to do the same thing my heroes got to do in ’64 and ’69,” Olds recalled. “Those guys were my heroes when I was a little kid being a batboy.”
Olds fulfilled one of his early dreams when he rode the fire truck after helping the baseball program secure its second state championship in five years under legendary coach Paul “Spider” Fields.
As the Indiana High School Athletic Association is set to stage its 50th state championship games Saturday at Victory Field in Indianapolis, only a handful of programs enjoyed success at the highest level in those early years. That included Lafayette Jeff, which started each season with one goal.
The Bronchos enjoyed the expectations.
“When we started every season playing for coach Fields, we thought we had the makeup to win a state title,” said Olds, a star pitcher who played at Indiana after graduation. “Our mentality? We expected to win. When we didn’t, we were shocked, we were disappointed. We started every season playing for him thinking we had a chance to win it all.”
Two seasons, two state championships and two different teams but all of Fields’ teams were molded in the same philosophy:strong fundamentals, solid pitching and defense.
“In ’69, we were very young,” Fields remembered. “We had three seniors on our roster but we had five really good sophom*ores that lettered as freshmen the previous year. We felt like we had a pretty good chance in ’73 because we had a veteran ball club.
“We had tremendous talent that was willing to work and we had a fantastic group of parents.”
Coaching inspired Crawfordsville's baseball ascent
When the IHSAA implemented the state baseball tournament in 1967, Jeff was an established powerhouse, thanks in part to the American Legion program and the strong presence of youth baseball. In fact, the Bronchos brought an 18-game winning streak into the season and won their first 27 games. They lost to Hammond Morton 1-0 in the semistate, snapping a 45-game winning streak.
Jeff made its first state finals appearance two years later, beating South Spencer in the semifinals and pounding Bloomington 9-1 in the title game. Against South Spencer, Mark Hackard struck out 19 in the nine-inning game.
“Hackard had a great game,” Fields said.
Greg Boehning — who later signed with the Chicago White Sox — pitched the title gamedespite battling arm soreness. He threw a complete game in the 9-1 victory.
Before the extra inning game in the state finals, the Bronchos outlasted Central Catholic 1-0 in eight innings on Blake Simms’ double to win the sectional.
In 1973, Olds shut out Jeffersonville 1-0 in the state finals as Jeff scored the only run in the first inning on Jeff McMindes’ RBI single. In the title game, the Bronchos trailed LaPorte 6-0 before scoring eight unanswered runs to claim the championship. Frank Simek and McMindes delivered key hits against the Slicers.
In winning two semistate games the week before at Anderson, Jim Fields, Spider’s son, drove in nine runs with two home runs, including a grand slam, and a bases loaded triple.
Jeff wins NCC baseball title
“Throughout the whole tournament we had different guys step up at different times,” Olds said. “It was a total team effort — clutch hits, clutch plays from different people. We came from behind three or four different times.”
The Bronchos could have easily added more trophies. The aforementioned 1967 team lost one game. In 1970, Jeff advanced to the semistate championship game. The next year, the Bronchos lost to LaPorte in the state title game.
During the three-year period between state championships, Jeff compiled a 102-16-1 record. It was part of Fields’ 16-year record of 404-70-1 — an amazing .851 winning percentage.
“Winning the state title for us was a great accomplishment, but there were probably two or three teams — maybe more — in coach Fields’ history that were better than us as far as talent,” Olds said. “But we made the right plays, the right hitter had the right hits at the right time and we were able to win it.”
Albrecht family baseball journey
State title memories
In 1967, coach Ken Schreiber's LaPorte Slicers won the first Indiana high school baseball tournament state championship, 7-5 over Arlington. Two years later, Lafayette Jeff became the first local team to win a baseball state championship and six others have done so since. This weekend concludes the 50th annual Indiana High School Athletic Association state baseball tournament.
The Journal & Courier is highlighting the seven area schools that have won state baseball championships.
Today, we're highlighting Lafayette Jeff, which won state championships in 1969 and 1973.
