By Bill Herr
Before building the nice field out at Village Park, the baseball teams for Bluffton High School played at the southeast corner of Harmon Field, near the railroad tracks. It also served for softball games. This was after Triplett Corporation used to sponsor excellent baseball teams. When they played, the diamond was in front of the stadium. I used to go to their games. They had talented players who were out of school. The games were highly competitive.
My nephew, Bob Herr, was a fine baseball player for the Pirates in the middle '70s. When Bluffton played Shawnee on the field that was near the railroad tracks, Shawnee had a player named Brad Komminsk. After high school, Komminsk was signed and played major league baseball for eight seasons. I remember watching him play for the Chicago White Sox. He was a good outfielder with a strong arm, and he could hit for average and hit with power. Against Bluffton, Bob said he hit a ball to left field that sailed over the creek and the trees and landed in the Triplett parking lot. That might have been the baseball hit the farthest at Harmon Field.
During the summer of 1975, Beaverdam Methodist, First Mennonite and Ebenezer Mennonite used to get guys together and play softball against each other. Players on different teams were friends and it was fun. In the winter of 1976, Ted Bauman, a local CPA and a member of First Mennonite, called me representing Beaverdam Methodist and another person representing Ebenezer and invited us to meet and make up rules to start a church softball league. Ted loved playing softball and he wanted to play more often. We met and in the summer of 1976 the league was established and was very successful for years. It included local church teams, other teams from three counties and some Lima teams.
Back to the longest baseball hit at Harmon field. During the summer church softball season, there were multiple games on the same day, played on the field by the railroad. I used to go early, before my team’s scheduled game, and watch other teams play. In between innings, if I noticed an "old timer" sitting on a lawn chair watching the game, I would approach him and strike up a friendly conversation. I was fishing for stories of games past he had observed that might be of interest.
One older fellow told me about a former Bluffton High School coach that was the head coach for both football and baseball. He described him as short and stout and a good coach. He said he witnessed the coach at baseball practice hit a baseball that didn't stop rolling until it reached the bridge on College Avenue. Maybe that was the farthest a baseball was hit at Harmon Field.
Then he told me another baseball story about this same coach. Bluffton was playing a Lima team and was leading in the late innings. The Lima coach deliberately began stalling so the officials would cancel the game due to darkness. Bluffton's coach called him out for stalling. The Lima coach said something insulting and the Bluffton coach "decked him."
Bluffton Public Library digital archive photo: https://ohiomemory.org/digital/collection/p15005coll28/id/3479
Icon columnist Bill Herr is providing monthly articles about Bluffton athletes. Read all about him in our 2014 article William Herr receives Bluffton University Lifetime Service Award.
