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To Hit With The Best
"I've always played with some pretty good hitters," says Engle. "And I've never hit lower than fifth in the lineup.
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06/19/09 - Sonny Fulks/1570wptw.com
Joe Engle may or may not be Troy Post 43’s top hitter through the team’s first 20 games. It’s hard to tell because Frosty Brown doesn’t keep stats.
Frosty would rather his players focus on their next at bat rather than get notions of grandeur over what they’ve already done. But this much we do know. In our 6 broadcasts of Post 43 games on WPTW this season, the Post’s third baseman out of Sidney High School is hitting .460, with five multi-hit games. We suspect a trend.
A trend, given that Engle tore up GWOC North pitching in his senior year at Sidney, hitting .460, and then moved on to Owens Tech Community College this past spring and never missed a beat. In 44 games for the Toledo Junior College Engle hit .470, with three home runs and 55 rbis…as a freshman!
He rarely cracks a smile. He rarely shows his emotions on the field. But get to know Joe Engle and soon enough you’ll realize…playing baseball is his life’s calling.
“Since I was six years old and playing at Custenborder Park in Sidney,” he said shyly before Thursday’s game with Lima Post 96 at Duke Park. “I’ve always loved baseball, right from Little League through high school. It’s all I ever wanted to do.”
That, and hit. Ask him point blank and Engle will tell you…he’s always been a good hitter. In fact, he can’t remember a league in which he didn’t at least .400…Little League through now Junior College.
“I’ve always played with pretty good hitters,” he admits. “At Sidney we had Brad Yinger, Jude DeLoye and Shane Delligatta…but I can’t remember any team on which I batted lower than fifth in the lineup.”
It’s no surprise at all to Frosty Brown, who’s had his eye on Engle for a couple of years, seeing him first at Sidney as an on-air analyst during spring broadcasts on WPTW. In a constantly shuffling lineup, Brown has made the former Yellow Jacket a fixture in the cleanup position.
“They thing about Joe is he makes good contact,” says Brown. “He works hard and he always seems to have good at bats. I’d say for the first month of the season he’s been our most consistent hitter.”
And more impressively, as the competition has improved, from Little League, to Owens Tech, to summer Legion Ball, so too, has Joe Engle.
“We played some pretty good teams at Owens and I saw some pretty good pitchers,” he says with a rare smile. “I started out playing third base last fall behind a sophomore who was coming back for his second year. But I started hitting and kept hitting, he got hurt before the start of the season, and they left me at third an put him at another position when he got healthy.”
He’s studying business at Owens for his two-year stint in Toledo, but the business Engle would first like to transact is landing an opportunity to play baseball at a Division I school…anywhere…although he has his preferences.
“Yeah, I’d love to get a scholarship to play at that level,” he confesses. “And my first choice would probably be Wright State. It’s close to home and I’ve always liked the school and followed their baseball.”
Chances are, the Raiders will have to take notice if he keeps hitting. In Thursday’s game with Lima, he didn’t make the hard contact of the past month, but he did make contact, driving in two runs late in the game with a sacrifice fly and a single in Post 43’s 8-5 win.
“I really believe Joe has a chance to play at a very high level of baseball,” says Frosty Brown. “...Even minor league ball. I gotta’ work on getting him to believe that.”
He’s not looking that far ahead, and for now Joe Engle would be perfectly happy to make it in the Horizon League. If that happens and he hits .400 the future will take care of itself. And who’s to say he won’t?
He’s never done less.
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