Monday, April 16, 2007

The Moeller Machine

Under head coach Mike Cameron, the Crusaders’ baseball program has cranked out top teams and standout players for 40 years

By Brad Del Barba

Winning is more than a tradition for the Moeller baseball squad, it is a way of life. With four Division I college recruits in Tom Belza, Dan Burkhart, David Corna, Alex Wimmers, that tradition will again be carried out this spring as the Moeller machine prepares for another season driven by head coach Mike Cameron.

Class is easy to identify, but often difficult to execute. Yet for 40 spring seasons, Mike Cameron has guided the Crusader nine employing class that few can duplicate, but many Moeller parents and student-athletes have learned to appreciate.

The 62-year-old has been trusted with coaching the sons of major leaguers to many of Cincinnati’s gifted athletes, From two generations of the Queen City’s beloved baseball family, the Bell’s (Buddy and sons), to Cincinnati Reds favorites Barry Larkin and Ken Griffey, Jr.; Moeller has been the choice of many prospective college and professional baseball players due to the presence of Cameron at Moeller.

“One of Moeller’s strengths is our rich, athletic tradition and Mike has been a major factor in the development and growth of our athletic program,” says Moeller Athletic Director Barry Borman. “He is well-liked and respected by his students and other coaches in the Cincinnati area.”

Under Cameron’s tutelage, the Crusaders have won 740 games, four state championships and graduated a countless number of quality student-athletes. More wins will come in 2007, as Moeller enters the season ranked No. 24 in the nation by Perfect Game and No. 40 by Baseball America. A fifth state title is not out of the question.

Baseball’s revolutionary Branch Rickey once said: “Luck is the residue of design.” The saying aptly applies to Moeller’s Cameron-led machine, as the coach feels luck is involved.  But parents and students know it is the hard work that he and his coaching staff have employed throughout the years that has made the Crusaders’ program the success it is today.

“One thing we tell them is that it is our job to teach them the game of baseball and our goal is to be the very best team we can be and that we are going to be in it together,” emphasizes Cameron on his basic philosophies. “I really believe this, that we want to make it a part of their high school experience and if they are fortunate enough to go on to play college ball great and if we can help them go on to play at the professional level that’s good, but everyone is important and we want to make it a good experience for all.”

While most schools field a team, Moeller runs a program. Annually at tryouts the Crusaders’ staff whittles down a 100 prospective players to 50 young men who will comprise the three school teams. The task for immense Coach Cameron and assistants Bob Sherlock and Tim Held.

“I know a lot of schools say, ‘here comes the Moeller army and how to do that and keep them all happy?’” says Cameron. “We sell the kids on the idea when they are freshman on being a team player and the life values that they are going to learn.”

Cameron joined the Moeller staff in 1967 after a football-based career at the University of Cincinnati. He joined then-coach Jerry Faust as an assistant football coach, while asking to coach baseball. He would coach both sports for 18 years, before focusing entirely on baseball and teaching health and physical education.

Through Cameron’s high standards and sound baseball knowledge, the Moeller program has been the choice of many future collegiate and professional stars. Present day Royals’ manager Buddy Bell was on Cameron’s first team; while sons David, Mike and Ricky followed.

“Coach Cameron was one of the best coaches that I have had in any sport or at any level,” says Mike Bell, who left Moeller as a first round pick of the Texas Rangers en route to a 14-year professional career and a stint with the hometown Reds in 2000. “He knows and understands the game, but his ability to relate to high school kids makes him great.”

Mike Bell was a member of the 1993 Moeller state championship club. He remembers it as a great experience, which concluded with Bell giving a buzz haircut to his coach, who was part of the fun.

Ken Griffey, Jr. and Barry Larkin both donned the blue and gold of Moeller and could find themselves enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

“I know with Griffey we just kind of sat back and (said) let’s just enjoy watching him, because this is a once in a lifetime kid that is coming through our program,” remembers Cameron. “Everybody could appreciate his hitting, but Paul (Smith) and I remarked and loved to see him in the outfield and how he would get to balls that we knew that other high school kids would never have a chance of getting. He made it look so routine…we knew we were watching a player that was definitely going to play in pro ball.”

“Now Larkin was one of those who I was not surprised that he played major league baseball,” continues Cameron. “But more, the success that he was an MVP player and played 19 years, that is really something.”

Nine former players have made their way to the major leagues. The stands to grow in the future, as 2004 state champion alumnus Andrew Brackman projects to be a first round pick in the 2007 amateur draft following his junior season at North Carolina State.

Also being looked at by the pro scouts this year will be Dan Remenowski, who heads the staff of pre-season top-ranked DIII Otterbein College, and Wake Forest’s Ben Hunter, who along with Brackman, are in the running for the prestigious Roger Clemens Award given annually to the top pitcher in collegiate ball. While Hunter has spurned early overtures by the scouts in favor of a career in medicine, he still may be in the scope of baseball’s ivory hunters.

Naturally, the prophets of the sandlots will find their way to Crosley Field in Blue Ash to watch Belza (Oklahoma State signee) and Burkhart, Wimmers and Corna, who signed with Big Ten powerhouse Ohio State.

Shortstop Belza hit a robust .389 with 18 stolen bases last season. Corna (.312, 20 RBI) and Burkhart (.349, 25 RBI) will add punch to Crusader’s lineup. Wimmer, whose father Jerry attended Moeller in 1972, moves between the mound (5-1, 1.51) and first base (.473, 24 RBI).

While the 2007 season will probably not be the last for Cameron, he does concede that he is now taking it a year at a time.

“To compete at the level that you need to compete at in the GCL, and our goals to compete at the state-wide level, you need a guy that still has the passion,” says Cameron. “The future is a lot shorter than the past; (but) I am looking forward to this year.”

From Crosley to Crosley

Though best known for guiding the Crusaders at home games played at Blue Ash’s Crosley Field, Coach Cameron was bit by the baseball bug when he worked as a visiting clubhouse boy at Old Crosley Field.

“Part of what developed my love of baseball, for two years, my freshman and sophomore years at Purcell (High School), I worked in the visitor’s clubhouse down at Crosley Field,” he says. “That’s where I really developed a passion for the sport. Just having the chance to watch Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and Warren Spahn and all the players of the early 1960s, it was a great, great experience.

“I remember when Bill DeWitt was the General Manager of the Reds; he liked to have two bat boys in each dugout.  So my job when I was to assist the head bat boy was if a player was left on second base I would run out an get the helmet or run down to the bullpen to get the jacket for the relief pitcher coming in. So I did get the chance to get in the dugout and experience that and it was a thrill and to this day I look back on that time with great memories.”