Ey batta, batta, swing! Baseball being added to the High School was a huge speculation last year as Adams Central made the original proposal of a co-op baseball team. That did not happen but it still could happen knowing that a large amount of students at Hastings High play Legion ball and HHS could gain students through transfer from St. Cecilia and Adams Central who want to play baseball here.
Hastings High Sophomore and Legion Baseball player Vinny Schmidt was asked on what he knew about the speculation, and his response was, “That board members were talking about all three schools in Hastings combining their kids to make a baseball team for high school instead of summer ball only.” And from a teacher’s aspect, Athletic Director Traci Douglas said, “It was being discussed last year. It was brought up about co-oping with Adams Central and St. Cecilia but the talks had died down since last year.” She also went on to talk about how the school board found too many concerns with co-oping with other Hastings schools.
The co-op idea had been thrown around since the original proposal. “It cannot be specified as of now,” said Athletic Director Traci Douglas. Some of the legion players said they wouldn’t mind co-oping with Adams Central and St. Cecilia. “I thought it would be cool. I have a lot of friends that go to St. Cecilia and Adams Central so it would be a cool experience to play high school baseball with them,” was a comment from Vinny Schmidt. It was also liked of the idea of baseball altogether. “I was really excited about it. Baseball is one of my favorite sports I thought [Hastings High] would have a lot of success. [Hastings High] has a lot of good baseball players that have been playing for a long time and these players in the past have had success so it’s carried on into older stages of playing.” Vinny Schmidt said.
While adding baseball would add revenue for the school it could cause track and field and soccer to lose some very good athletes. Though it would hurt those sports it would actually help greatly for Legion ball. “It gives the legion teams prepared at a higher level to begin the season since we would have played twenty-plus games before it started,” said Schmidt.
