|
History
As the 2006
season Fastpitch season gets under underway, PBI (Pate
Bonding Inc.) will be entering it’s 19th
year of playing. If not for some lucky breaks, this
team may never have existed.
Back in the summer of
1987, a group of kids out of High School, some going to
college, some working, but all who had always played
summer baseball, found themselves not playing any
baseball that particular summer.
So three individuals,
Dan Wilson, Dan Ball and Bill Korfhage decided to try
and organize a team to play some fastpitch in the West
St Paul Tournament.
Wayne Ball, Tournament
Organizer and Director and COG Fastpitch Team Manager,
said he would help out at a few practices and give a few
tips.
The team found of
bunch of hats with the Garland, Texas logo on them, and
thus went under the name of Garland.
The only problem that
plagued the team was pitching. Nobody had any
experience and no one could “pitch” well enough. That’s
when luck stepped in. Doug Thomas, who pitched for a
team in Henderson, Minnesota called Wayne one afternoon
and said his team was not coming up for the tournament,
but would like to catch on with someone.
This made a perfect
match. The team won their opening game 4-3 over Conway
Construction. The lost their next game in 9 innings to
Morelli’s 3-2 and then lost 11-3 to a strong Lonsky
Lumber team.
Over the next few
years, there were some personnel changes with the team
adding Jerry Ball, Derek Shepherd, Steve Kennedy, Tim
Berg, Gregg Kruse, Jeff Sell, who, coincidentally, were
all Henry Sibley High School grads. The team also added
Paul Arntzen, who, along with Doug Thomas, was the only
non-Henry Sibley grad on the team.
The team went by “The
Equitable” it’s first few years. Buzzy Connor pitched
The Equitable to a 9-0-1 record and the Dunning League
Championship in their second year of play.
After a few years, the
team changed it’s name to Pate Bonding, Inc. (PBI). PBI
added Brad Shepherd (yes, also a Sibley Grad) in 1996.
Today, the team still
has two of it’s original members, Dan Ball and Bill
Korfhage and 8 current team members grew up in West St.
Paul.
With key additions of
Wayne Petrie (P), Jamie Kenney (OF), Mike “Gator”
Applegate (SS), and Charlie Rambo (OF) PBI hopes to
continue it’s success.
With it’s “Team First”
philosophy, much of the teams success has been
attributed to “team” play rather than individual play.
As many of the players have said, “We win as a team and
lose as a team.”
In 2000, PBI won the
ASA Class A State Championship. Just this last season,
they clamed the ASA Class B State Championship.
PBI has appeared in
eight straight National Tournaments, placing third in
2003 at the ASA Class B Nationals in College Station,
TX.
Over the years, PBI
has been fortunate enough to add talented ball players
to our roster. We are proud to say we have never had a
losing record. Our worst year, which was our first year
in existance, our record was 20-19.
A tribute to Fred
LaFavor
|
