Baseball at John Carroll has a complicated history.
 
That history dates back far past the modern incarnation.


The Early Years
 
As early as the mid 1910's, baseball was in the designs of the athletic department.
 
According to Donald Gavin in his book "A Century of Service", baseball and basketball were the sports bandied about when the athletic department began to take shape. From 1915 until 1922, a St. Ignatius baseball club was supported, and games were for the most part limited to Case Tech and Western Reserve.
 
For a few years, the team was coached by former major leaguer Paddy Livingston, whose claim to fame was he was the oldest living baseball player at one time prior to his death in 1980.
 
But football's rise in the 1920's led to baseball's demise at St. Ignatius College. The club was discontinued in 1922.


An Idea But Not A Reality
 
That did not mean the idea of the sport did not percolate at various times in the subsequent years. Several issues of the Carroll News mention an indoor baseball league in the 1920's and 1930's. Baseball was also part of the intramural offerings at various times.
 
After World War II, the call for a baseball team began to grow louder. A number of Carroll News columns asked the athletic department hard questions about the possibilities. The largest deterrent was the field issue, as in where to put it.
 
At one point, it seemed there was a movement to add both baseball and track around 1948 and 1949 school years. Track was eventually added, but baseball was not.
 
The wait would continue.
 
Wrestling and Soccer would be added in the 1960's, while baseball remained relegated to intramural status. There would be the occasional "wishing" and "dreaming" of a baseball program columns in the student newspaper, but there appeared to be little action in moving toward a baseball reality.
 

Along Comes Jerry

The first real signs of life came in the early part of 1972.
 
The formation of the John Carroll Baseball Club was the result of a meeting held in January of that year by Jerry Schweickert.
 
When JCU celebrated a baseball anniversary years ago, Schweickert recalled the impetus that led to that meeting.
 
"At the time, I was the head football coach," Schweickert remembered. "I had a difficult time recruiting for football, even kids that I coached in summer baseball leagues because they'd all run off to Baldwin Wallace since we didn't have baseball. The final straw came when I couldn't even recruit a kid who lived next door to my sister in Chicago. I walked into the athletic director's office and said, 'I want to start a baseball team.'"
 
Originally, 35 people answered the call to that January meeting, but the number was eventually reduced to 20, and that core group began working out with the intent of playing in the spring despite not having a field, uniforms and very modest equipment.
 
The competitiveness of the club team that spring impressed those in charge, and when school convened that fall, baseball had much needed momentum.
 
The announcement finally came in November of 1972 that indeed, baseball would at long last become a varsity sport.
 
"The evidence of student interest plus the advisement of the conference were the prime movers behind this year's first varsity baseball team," said Dr. John Keshock, who was the athletic director of John Carroll at the time. "At the moment, we are only intending to play a modified conference schedule. This could be changed to a full slate, but we can't be sure until after the next meeting of the member schools' presidents and athletic directors."
 
It was decided that Schweickert would oversee the program. Dr. Robert Yackshaw, an English professor at the school, was tabbed to be an assistant coach.
 
"Everyone is back from last year's club team, plus an abundance of students from the Cleveland AAA and Connie Mack leagues, should give us a high quality personnel," said Schweickert of the prospects of the 1973 season.
 
Once the news of a varsity team became official, nearly 50 candidates attended the first meeting in December. It was there they learned that indeed the team would compete for a Presidents' Athletic Conference title, that home games would be played at University School, and the feasibility of a spring break trip was being discussed. The last item did not happen that first season, but the other two did.
 
A schedule was put together with April 4, 1973, being the target date for the first games at Youngstown State. Another target date, April 7, was set for the first home game as well as conference game against Washington & Jefferson.
 
As is bound to happen in northeast Ohio, the April 4 date was postponed, making April 7 the new "first". That date would hold, even if the intended field did not. The doubleheader was moved to Cleveland Heights High School.
 
April 7 arrived and the all clear signal was given. JCU varsity baseball would debut on this day.
 
The Blue Streaks were primed and ready. The pitching combo of Al Zdesar and Keith Hoover powered the home team to a doubleheader sweep of the Presidents.
 
Baseball, after a long and winding road, had finally arrived as a varsity sport at John Carroll.


Moving Forward Through The Obstacles

There were still bumps in the road. The concept of the spring training trip, which has evolved into a necessity in this day and age, did not become a reality until 1976 because it was only possible through external funding. The only reason the 1976 trip took place came from an idea born out of left field.
 
Yackshaw came up with a proposal of selling Christmas trees as a way to fund the spring trip. That effort raised enough money that the team could travel to play fellow Jesuit school Spring Hill College on March 6 of that year in Mobile, Alabama.
 
Another obstacle was a home field. It took ten years before a field on campus could be constructed and supported. And over those first ten years, there were more losing seasons than winning ones, with just one PAC title (1976) to show for their efforts. Even practicing on campus was not without its hardships. Legend has it that players could not leave practice without carting a glove full of gravel off the playing surface.
 
But things began to change in the early 1980's, and once a field was in place, John Carroll would dominate the latter half of the decade in the PAC. In 1984, the team made its first NCAA Division III postseason appearance.
 
The ultimate irony of the baseball history took place in 2003. When Don Shula Stadium was constructed, it affected baseball. Once again, it seemed something football related was having an impact on baseball's existence, just like it had in the 1920's.
 
This time, however, the impact was for the good. The baseball home dugout was included in the stadium structure, giving the program access for the first time to storage, lockers and showers.
 
Just another chapter in the complicated history of baseball at John Carroll, which is now part of the lore that the sport itself is known for.