Members of Pottstown’s 1972 team reunite

POTTSTOWN >> The significance isn’t lost on George Bailey.

“I’ve heard that about a thousand times,” Bailey said of the name he shares with Jimmy Stewart’s character from the class 1940s Christmas movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

It was an appropriate coincidence Saturday, when Bailey and other members of Pottstown High’s 1972 baseball team reunited at Bobby Shantz Field. Against the backdrop of the current team’s game with Oley Valley, it proved an opportunity to remember the wonderful life they had on the diamond that spring.

That 1972 squad won a second straight Ches-Mont League championship, going 14-1 overall (13-1 league) and capping the memorable season with a one-run win over West Chester in the league’s title game. They spent the day reminiscing about those glory days and preparing a cookout lunch for the players and fans.

Keith Stahl and Bert Skarbek, members of the ‘72 team, were at the center of organizing a reunion that attracted a majority of the surviving players from the team. They spent time sharing memories, posing for pictures and checking out the on-field action between the Trojans and the Lynx, a game which Oley Valley took home a 5-0 victory.

“Bert Skarbek asked me last year if I was interested in seeing a Pottstown game,” Keith Stahl, a member of the ‘72 team, said. “There were six of us who came out. Bert said we should make this an annual thing.”

And there were memories aplenty from that season.

Pottstown opened with 11 straight wins prior to its only loss: A 9-5 setback to a Boyertown team it no-hit in a previous meeting. In the championship game, the ‘72 Trojans opened a big lead on West Chester, hanging on for a 7-6 victory at The Hill School after seeing WC score three in the top of the seventh inning.

“It was a great breed of guys we had. Everybody clicked,” Bailey recalled. “We had some of the best athletes this area has ever seen. We were just a powerhouse.”

The team roster featured players who went on to be involved with various sports at higher levels. Heading that list was Jack Deloplaine, who parlayed his football talents into a four-year career in the National Football League.

A second baseman at Pottstown, Deloplaine played for Salem College (now Salem International University) before being selected in the sixth round of the 1976 NFL draft by the Pittsburgh Steelers. He spent two years with the Steelers — a part of their Super XIII victory over the Miami Dolphins — before spending time with the Washington Redskins and Chicago Bears.

“The seniors were totally familiar with each other,” he said. “Everybody here were athletes. We played together a long time.”

Another teammate, Marvin Whitehurst, went on to be a player of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ major-league baseball organization for three years. He meshed with Stahl in forming the team’s renowned “Power Boys,” known for their long-ball hitting ability.

“We’d be out on the Hill field playing ball all the time,” Whitehurst recalled. “When we got to high school, we knew something huge was going to happen.”

Another team member, Steve Verbit, is in his 32nd year as a coach with the Princeton University football program. Currently the associate head coach to Bob Surace, Verbit continues to coach the defensive line and shares the defensive coordinator role with Jim Salgado.

Verbit also coached at the University of Delaware for six seasons. The 1977 Delaware graduate helped guide the Blue Hens to the Division II national championship in 1979.

Whitehurst remembered Pottstown’s first game with Boyertown that year … a pitching duel between Bailey and the Bears’ Randy Koch.

“George threw a no-hitter,” he said. “Randy Koch threw a one-hitter. Al Shelton hit a home run.”

Players also recalled the rematch with Boyertown, and the circumstances surrounding it. In the wee hours of the morning the day of the game, they had returned home from a senior class trip to Walt Disney World. They still, however, had to attend school that day before playing a game the Bears won, 9-5 … but not before Pottstown staged a late-inning charge.

“If we’d played one more inning,” Whitehurst said, “we could have beat them.”

Bailey headed a pitching staff that recorded four shutouts that year, in addition to his no-hitter against Boyertown. He boasted a five-pitch repertoire (fast ball, curve, changeup, knuckle curve, slider) and a penchant for wanting to be out on the field even when he wasn’t pitching.

“I played shortstop, third base, outfield, everywhere,” he said. “I wanted to play every game.”

Bailey’s success his senior season ranks even more remarkable considering the fact — not known at the time — he played with a rotator-cuff tear in his throwing arm. He got the problem fixed in 2009 and pointed out he has “five anchors holding it together.”

“I wasn’t giving up for nothing,” Bailey said, adding he pitched 14 no-hitters and 10 perfect games for his youth-baseball career.

“George threw smoke,” Deloplaine noted. “His knuckle ball fell out of the strike zone.”

Though he wasn’t a member of the high-school team, Dan Edleman had ties with the ‘72 players. He had the opportunity to catch for Bailey at the Little League level.

“When George pitched, I had to have a sponge in my glove,” he said with a laugh.

Heading the talented cast was head coach Ron Hallman and assistant Bill Kerr. Hallman headed the varsity team between 1970 and 1975, after being the junior-varsity coach from 1968 to 1969, and Kerr followed him in an extended tenure as head coach.

“We had a great bunch of athletes on the championship teams,” Hallman said. “They worked hard … at practice, they were all business. We had great athletes who could run, hit and throw hard.”

The players thrived under Hallman’s direction, though Deloplaine joked he “worked us harder than we wanted to.”

“Hallman was fun to play for,” Deloplaine said. “To be successful, you have to believe in yourselves and your coaches. We did.”

Other players on Pottstown’s 1972 baseball team were Scott Christman, Gary Hetrick, Barney Levengood, Mike Missimer, Craig Myer, John Ruyak, Dale Sassaman, Richard Shelton and Terry Ziegler.

NOTES >> Pottstown High will acknowledge another part of its storied baseball history Wednesday, when Bobby Shantz makes his annual visit to the field that bears his name. The visit by the 90-year-old Shantz, who pitched for eight teams during a major-league career extending from 1949 to 1964 — among them Philadelphia’s Athletics and Phillies — will coincide with the Trojans’ PAC-10 game against Perkiomen Valley.