Here's edited text from ‘Pasero Says’ sports column by sports editor George Pasero in July 21, 1978, Oregon Journal, Portland evening daily newspaper. Editing by and supplemental info from Wildcatville in 2021.
It’s supposed to be a surprise, but let’s quit kidding. Sharp man that he
is, and with all the friends that he has, Roy Helser by now knows something is
going on.
Which is on Saturday, Roy’s 1966 Linfield national championship team (NAIA),
winner of four straight in St. Joseph, Missouri, will descent on him to relive what Oregonian sports writer Dick Fishback
then called “the finest achievement in Oregon small college baseball history.”
Helser vividly remembers the highlights – and there were many.
Stu Young, a 160-pounder out of Medford, pitched two of the wins. Frank Bake
from Cleveland High (of Portland) threw another and , in the championship game,
Roy called on John Hart, from Washington High (of Portland), a sophomore who
had been injured and hadn’t had a pitching decision. John was shaky to start,
then settled down as his mates bombed 17 hits in the 15-4 win.
(John Hart is a member of the Portland Interscholastic League Hall of Fame.
In a commentary by John Hart at the PIL “Hall” website he said Helser “came out to the
mound in the first inning. I was wild and pumped with adrenaline and knew it
was all over. But like all great coaches who help turn boys into men, he did
not take the ball away, he took the ball and slowed everything down and looked
at me and said ‘You will never have a chance like this again, I am giving you
another chance’ and he handed the ball back and left the mound. …. He really
wanted to win, he was a very tough competitor. He did not take me out. He
believed in me...I believed. I shut them out the rest of the game.”)
IT WAS A TEAM that did nothing but surprise Helser.
“When we started the season, Roy recalls,” we weren’t expected to be very
good, but as the season progressed the guys learned and … decided they wanted
to be first.
“When we arrived at St. Joseph (Missouri), the kids were really loose, the loosest I’d
ever had going into a tournament. In fact, I worried about getting them
serious.”
After it was won, Helser marveled, “You never saw a bunch decide to want to
win a tournament like this one did. They were just a great team; it’s easy to
say that, but these guys acted like it and talked like it. They never showed a
sign of tension, and, in fact, would say, ‘Cool it, coach, we are going to win.’
”
And win they did — with some unbelievable feats.
“ALL BAKE really had,” says Helser “was a sinker ball, but I told him to
just keep throwing it, and, would you believe, he made the other club hit it on
the ground nine times to our third baseman, Jay Bandonis, who made good throws
on all for an NAIA record for assists.
“In the championship game, our catcher, Rocky Reed ... went 5-for-5, all of the shots you couldn’t believe. Two were over the
left-center field fence on the bounce. John Lee hit two that missed clearing
the fence by a foot. They were a hopped-up group of guys.”
THE LINFIELDS, who had beaten Southern Oregon, Eastern Washington and
Westmont of Santa Barbara to earn the trip to Missouri, were stung by being
picked for eighth in the tournament.
“You couldn’t blame the people back there,” says Roy. “First, we had to beat
Guilford of North Carolina, the favorite. Then, we were coming in with the
highest ERA, the lowest batting and fielding records.
“Well, we finished with the lower ERA and the best batting and fielding
records.”
WHO WERE THEY? Oh, Jay Gustafson, Alan Wells, John Lee, Barry Stenlund,
Frank Molek, Jay Bandonis, Steve Collette, Dennis Schweitzer, Stu Young, Rocky
Reed, Frank Bake, Gary Cox, Art Larrance, Wayne Petersen, Bob Daggett, Tom
Rohlffs and John Hart.
With money always a problem, 11 players were sent by student rates and the
other nine, who were over 21, on excursion fares. Somehow, the all assembled,
although getting home was even more of a problem. With some making as many as
five stops in different cities on circuitous routes to Portland.
PAUL DURHAM, the athletic director, stayed home, with Roy promising to call
each night.
The first night, Roy recalls, Paul said, “Nice going.”
The second night it was, “No kidding!”
The third, “NO kidding.”
The last, “Wow!”
Paul, who also wrote a column for the McMinnville
News-Register, the next day led off with: “NATIONAL CHAMPIONS – Stick that
between your teeth and roll it around a bit. It sounds better every time you
say it.” It sounds a whale of lot better when Roy’s champions come to his
Lincoln City home.
HELSER’s own career — for achievement and longevity — also qualifies as one
of the state’s great sport stories. He was a football, basketball and baseball
athlete. Oh, he never won the Heisman or was drafted No. 1. In fact, he didn’t
play much baseball, really, until his brother Morrie got him to Linfield, where
Morrie was a student-athlete for Coach of all sports Henry Lever. He was the
“original ‘free agent,’ only in his day the bonuses were like a couple hundred
bucks for signing and sometimes the moguls were reluctant to part with even
that.
What happened to Roy: Back in 1936, he signed with the Cincinnati Red Major
League organization and played for its Waterloo, Iowa, farm team. Warren Giles
reneged on a bonus promised Roy for finishing the season. And so the stubborn
Helser went back to the semi-pros in an age when almost every town had a team
and Sunday games were the highlight of the week.
Roy played for Vernonia’s town team and for Doc Abrams (*see postscript) at Hillsboro, and he was getting $5 and
sometimes $10 a game, as was the way then for a good pitcher. As in 1938, he
commanded $100 for Abrams to pitch in the star tournament at Silverton, where
he won the top-pitcher award.
The next year, he was with Bill McGinnis and one of the great semi-pro teams
of all time and team that finished third in the National Congress at Wichita,
with Helser MVP there and then tabbed the nation’s No. 1 semi-pro player.
BIDDY BISHOP then signed him for two years with Salem in the old W-I
(Western International League and he had a “30-day look” by the old (San
Francisco) Seals, but Lefty O’Doul pronounced him too wild.
Then, with WWII ending the W-I, Helser taught at Rainier before coming to
organize the Albina Hellshippers league ... and sure, his team won.
With the Beavers in their final two weeks of the 1943 season and with 18
games to play, Bill Klepper recruited Helser — for $400.
In his first game he was matched against Ken Raffensberger, who was going for his 20th win for the
pennant-winning Los Angeles Angels. Roy won, 2-0. He then beat SF 3-1 and lost
2-1.
NEXT SPRING, he didn’t like Klepper’s offer, held out and finally got new
terms. He made his first start in Sacramento and won 10-4 while going 5-for-5
with the bat. He was such a good hitter that he later was sometimes used to
pinch-hit by the Beavers.
Anyway, Roy had a nine-year career with the Portland Beavers and old Vaughn
Street Stadium denizens recall what a fierce competitor he was.
After that he Roy recruited players and coached (and pitched and played
some) for the historic southern Oregon Drain Black Sox
But, Linfield came back into the picture. He was lured to the college, where
he coached basketball and baseball and assisted in football. In 21 baseball seasons
(1950-1970), his Linfield baseball teams winning 14 titles, finishing second
six times and third once. (Research shows he also coached the 1941 Linfield
baseball team, too.)
On Saturday, an “unbelievable team” – the Linfield Wildcats of 1966 -- is toasting
its great man of Oregon sports, Roy Helser.
#
*POSTSCRIPT from George Pasero’ “Pasero Says”
sports column in the Feb. 20, 1965, Oregon Journal ..
… More on Life of Roy Helser
Ed O’Meara, (Oregon Journal) city editor,
fills in “year 1938” in the career of Roy Helser … Ed was on the Hillsboro
(Argus newspaper) that year.
“1938 … was the year Helser – a prominent
McMinnville figure before and afterward in a pair of careers at Linfield –
brought baseball back to Hillsboro.
“The late Doc Abrams (a dentist...)
talked to (Ed) that spring … about doing something to stimulate baseball. It had
been dead in Hillsboro for about five years, although there were some
illustrious ghosts and fair crowd records in the past. Don was determined to do
something … we launched a fund-raising campaign.
“Long before the funds came in, however, Doc
had collared Roy Helser and ordered some fight, flashy blue-and-gold silk “airplane
cloth” (baseball uniforms) …
“He entered the (Hillsboro) team in the Portland Valley
League … along with the Portland Police, Elks and other high-caliber semi-pro
outfits.
Playing for Hillsboro, Roy was "suberb. He hit about .600, pitched about 15 games and, I think, won them all, won the league title … and the team went to play in the tournament at Bill McGinnis’ Silverton park … Hillsboro finished fourth --- largely due to Helser and the confidence he inspired in a pretty fair collection of players.
“This was after Roy’s apparently unhappy
connection with (the) Cincinatti (Reds of Major League Baseball’s “National
League.)… Rumor then was that Roy had the ability to make it but felt loney for
the Northwest … Remember that he pitched many years for the (Portland) Beavers
and so many people figured he could have done duty in the National League ..
but wasn’t very interested.
“Roy was and is a great guy.
“I remember than his (younger) brother,
Morrie, was even a bigger star at (their alma mater) Benson (High) … Roy was
the shy one, who went to Linfield because Morrie was going there …”