Ryan Gugel's homecoming much anticipated by local baseball fans

If you're a local baseball fan, you know this already: Ryan Gugel is coming to town.

Sunday and Monday's Muckdogs games against the Williamsport Crosscutters are as eagerly anticipated -- maybe more so -- as last year's playoff and championship games.

And maybe because both events -- championships and BHS grads playing professionally at Dwyer -- are equally rare.

Gugel, a BHS and GCC standout who signed a free agent contract with the Philadelphia Phlllies earlier this summer, will do something tomorrow night that very few BHS grads have accomplished -- stepped onto the field at Dwyer Stadium wearing the uniform of a professional baseball team.

The last BHS grad to play a professional game in Dwyer is probably Frank Dudley, a pitcher for the Batavia Indians in 1958-59.

Such a long time gap means there are many life-long Batavia baseball fans who never witnessed a championship until last season, and now may get to see for the first time a local kid play professionally at home.

"I've been going to games since 1968, since the dying days of the Lyndon B. Johnson administration and I've never seen a Batavia High kid play in this league," said Bill Kauffman. "It's exceedingly rare and what a great accomplishment for Ryan Gugel. He and his family should be really proud."

Before Dudley, there were Dick Raymond (who pitched a complete-game shutout in his Batavia debut), Ray Jamalkowski, Bob Radley and Jerry Maley.

Maley, who still lives in Batavia and regularly attends Muckdogs games, was probably the first BHS grad to play professionally at the hometown ballpark.

"Actually, it was quite a thrill (to play at home as a pro)," Maley said. "I grew up here and hung around the park when I was young and then when I signed, I thought it was quite a thrill."

Maley tried out for the Batavia Clippers in 1949, won a roster spot, but then didn't see much playing time, so he asked for his release. After a tryout with the Olean Oilers, Maley signed with the Clippers' New York-Penn League rival, finishing out the 1949 season with the Oilers and stepping up to the plate 443 times as the Oilers' second baseman in 1950.

Then Maley was drafted into the Army and his professional baseball days were over.

Maley thinks Gugel will feel the same excitement he did six decades ago.

Baseball fans throughout town are talking about Gugel, not because he's tearing up the NYPL (we're all mindful that he's just starting out and playing behind a league-leading hitter -- Sebastia Valle -- so he's only had five plate appearances in his short time with Williamsport), but because he's done something very, very few people who ever play high school or college ball: Become a professional ball player.

"He's playing for all of us," said Bill Dougherty, a local baseball history buff and dedicated Muckdogs fans. "Maybe he doesn't know that, but that's how I look at it, he's playing for all of us guys.

"Here's a guy who's actually going to the next step," Dougherty said. "We all played Little League or Babe Ruth, high school and we'll say at some point semi-pro or amateur, but here's one of us out there in the New York-Penn League, which is just great."

Dougherty figures there are only about a dozen Genesee County ballplayers who ever made it to the pros. The last one to play for Batavia was Mickey Hyde, who came out of Pavilion and played for GCC. He spent his first year of pro ball, 1989 in Batavia. His career carried him through 1993 and Triple AAA Scranton.

The last Batavia-born baseball player -- but he didn't grow up here -- to likely play a professional game in Batavia is Tim Kister, who spent the first of 13 minor league seasons in Auburn. Kister complied a 97-95 record with a 3.98 ERA, but never made it past AAA.

Dudley, the last BHS grad who played a professional game in Batavia, died at age 44 of an apparent heart attack in 1977. Canadian-born Dudley lived in Brockport at the time.

Game time Sunday is 5:05 p.m. and Monday 7:05 p.m.