Dean Kreiner, (left), Mount
Pleasant High baseball
coach and director of the
Mount Pleasant Invitational
Tournament, presents the
Class C title trophy to Dave
McCarney of St. Agnes in
a ceremony in front of the
high school. Coach Tom
Skinner (right) and Dave
Ranville display the Flint
Area Parochial Conference
trophy won by the Aggies for
a fourth successive year. In the
background are members of
the Aggies’ varsity.
They had played so much baseball growing up, they already knew the fundamentals — and how to win – long before high school.
So when a certain group of boys reached Flint St. Agnes in the early 1960s, that’s all they did: Win.
For four straight years, the St. Agnes High baseball teams of 1963-66 never lost a game in the Flint Area Parochial League, reeling off 29 wins in a row and four consecutive
titles. They went 55-5 overall, including three appearances in the Mount Pleasant Baseball Invitational, where they won the Class C championship in 1966 in what was then the
de facto state tournament.
Along the way, the Crusaders were dubbed “the New York Yankees of the Flint Area Parochial League” by a Flint Journal sports writer. Such Yankee-like dominance of the FAPC
and success in the postseason has earned those St. Agnes teams induction into the Greater Flint Area Sports Hall of Fame.
Few could have foreseen that championship run in the early spring of 1963. Coach Tom Skinner was in his first year at the high school level and made the bold move of keeping
seven freshmen and four sophomores on his 16-man varsity roster. In the final conference game of that season, with an outright title still on the line, he started four freshmen and
all four sophomores, forming the core of the dynasty to come.
“They were that good,” said Skinner.
Skinner knew because he had coached them on the St. Agnes junior high teams before taking the high school post. The Crusaders had been winners at that level, too, and
had grown accustomed to success even before that.
“We grew up with the Mott Foundation and a field right across the street from our house,” said Dave Ranville, one of the seven frosh picked for the varsity. “There were 20 kids
in our neighborhood and we were out there all the time.
“We won grade school titles and summer leagues. It just got to be a habit.”
Ranville played all four years on the St. Agnes varsity and posted a .439 career batting average with just eight strikeouts. He was first- or second-team All-FAPC all four years.
So was Dave Lucka, a stocky left-handed pitcher who went 24-2 and pitched the title-clinching win in the 1966 state tournament. Right-hander Larry Norfleet was 13-0 over
the same span and won the 1966 semifinal.
Then there was shortstop Wally Jakubczyk, another four-year varsity player who hit a career .395 with just six strikeouts and went on to earn All-American honors at Flint Junior
College.
