WARSAW, Poland – This past baseball season, coach
John Schaly took his Ashland University team out of state to play games in West Virginia, Florida, Michigan, and Kentucky.
And in 27 seasons at the helm of the Division II school his squad has also played in Pennsylvania and in regional tournaments in Illinois. His 2025 squad will open the season in late January at Minute Maid Park, the home of the Houston Astros.
But until this month, baseball had never taken the 1982 Marietta graduate out of the country – much less to Poland, where growing the game can be a challenge.
The trip to central Europe came about at the invitation of Stu Fritz, who retired earlier this year after coaching 31 seasons at Division III Hope in Michigan. The two veteran coaches met years ago through the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA), of which they are past presidents and have served on the board of directors.
"When Stu invited me, I was excited," said Schaly, sitting in the lobby of a hotel in Old Town Warsaw in the Polish capital. "Becky, my wife, also went to Marietta and she was a European studies major. We have been talking about starting to travel – we just got our passports in the last year. We want to go to Italy, where her family is from. Then Stu invited us to this and we said, 'Yea, let's do it.' We are just trying to spread the growth of our sport internationally."
Schaly has won 951 games at Ashland, more than 1,300 overall including stints at two schools in Florida, and he went into the ABCA Hall of Fame in 2018. He and his late father, Don, a coaching legend at Marietta (Hall of Fame 2004), are the only father-son duo to win more than 1,000 games at four-year schools as college baseball coaches. His father is also in the ABCA Hall of Fame.
"It has been a game that I love. It has been my life," Schaly said of baseball. "If I can help other coaches become better coaches – that is why I really wanted to get into this."
Schaly was approached about making the trip to Poland with Fritz, who became friends with ABCA member Tom O'Connell, a long-time high school coach in Milwaukee.
"When you are on the board at ABCA, you have the opportunity to lead two international trips," Fritz said of the trips organized by International Sports Group. "When the Poland trip came up, Tom had said John wanted to come. He said in two seconds 'We, are in.' And here we are. I just marvel at the hospitality I get when I go someplace else."
Fritz has extensive overseas coaching experience: he guided a youth team for three years in Puerto Rico, he coached a U.S. youth all-star team in Australia in 2001 and in 2007 his Hope squad played in the prestigious "Prague Baseball Week" in the Czech Republic – now referred to as Czechia. In 2017, he was in Switzerland for baseball clinics with then-Houston Astros pitching coach Brent Strom and Fritz returned for more clinics there three years later.
"I am headed back to Switzerland in January," said Fritz, while in Poland.
Poland does not have a rich baseball history like some European countries such as Italy and the Netherlands.
The Polish national team was ranked 61st in the world in September. And only four natives of Poland have made it to the Major Leagues, and all of them moved to the United States at a young age.
FROM POLAND TO THE SHOW
The fourth and last native of Poland to make The Show was pitcher Moe Drabowsky, who born in a small village in southeast Poland in 1935. He moved to Connecticut as a young boy with his American mother (his Polish father came a year later) and played in the major leagues from 1956 to 1972. He was the winning pitcher of Game 1 of the 1966 World Series with the Orioles and won another World Series ring with Baltimore four years later.
Drabowsky and Hall of Famer Stan Musial, whose father was Polish, made a visit to Kutno, Poland in 1987 to give a clinic to local youth. A former minor league instructor for the Orioles, Drabowsky passed away in 2006 while Musial died in 2013.
Today, Stan Musial Field in Kutno is part of the headquarters of Little League Baseball for Europe/Africa. The winner of the tournament each summer in Kutno advances to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa.
It was in Kutno – a town of about 50,000 people around 70 miles west of Warsaw – where Schaly and Fritz gave their clinic to Polish coaches on October 19-20.
Before the clinic, the two coaches and their wives were able to visit the Warsaw Uprising Museum – depicting the grim story of 1944 during World War II – and walk around Old Town before going to a traditional Polish restaurant.
Poland has a population of about 40 million people and joined the European Union in 2004. In sports, soccer – like in most countries of Europe – is very popular. The Polish national men's volleyball team took silver in the Paris Olympics and Poland native Iga Swiatek is the top women's tennis player in the world.
Schaly, who got a taste of Polish culture, is part of the rich Marietta baseball tradition.
He was MVP of the Division III College World Series in 1981 when his father won the first of three national titles.
"I grew up around the program. I was the oldest of four boys," he said. "We each had our jobs to do (at games). We were bat boys, we hung the numbers up on the scoreboard, then we would go to the press box and do the ball, strikes, outs. So we all grew up around it and obviously a winning, nationally competitive program. I was fortunate – I knew I wanted to become a coach at a young age."
"And then playing for dad was just a great experience," he added. "I felt he treated me the same as everyone else. Sometimes dads are harder on their kids. He was tough on all of us. I was part of his first national championship team and got to play in three World Series. I was my dad's assistant for one year. I really enjoyed coaching with him. Then my son Adam coached with me (at Ashland) two years, which was a great two years. It is in our family and background and kind of who we are."
A FAMILY AFFAIR
His three brothers are also involved in college athletics: Jeff (1990 graduate of Marietta) works at Marietta as Assistant Athletics Director for Sports Information and Compliance, Joe (1986) is the baseball coach at Thiel College in Pennsylvania and Jim (1984) is a former minor league umpire who is now at the Division I level in college and has called games in the College World Series in Omaha twice.
One of Joe's assistants at Thiel is Lynn Jones, a former Major League outfielder and 1974 graduate of Thiel.
John Schaly's son, Adam, pitched at Stetson and another son, Drew, played at Baldwin Wallace. His daughter, Nicole, is a graduate of Marietta and her husband is a former baseball player at the school.
A few of his Ashland players have gone on to play at the pro level.
That includes
Brandyn Sittinger, who pitched in five games for the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2021, and pitcher
Art Warren, who saw action in 2019 for the Mariners and in 2021-22 for the Reds.
Warren, released recently by the Yankees, took part in fall scrimmages at Ashland before Schaly headed to Poland.
"He came out and threw to our hitters twice in the last week," Schaly said. "It was neat. He had his walk-up song playing."
After that, Schaly carried the rich tradition of baseball at Ashland and Marietta with him to Poland for a chance to impact a new set of coaches. A Polish youth team also took part in the clinic.
"The clinic went well. I got to meet some great people, very friendly, and eager to learn more about our game. It was truly a great experience for me," according to Schaly.
Veteran journalist David Driver played baseball at Division III Eastern Mennonite in Virginia. He covered the Washington Nationals from 2013-22 for various publications, including Game 7 of the 2019 World Series in Houston. A former sports editor with papers in Maryland and Virginia, he is the co-author of "From Tidewater to the Shenandoah: Snapshots from Virginia's Rich Baseball Legacy," which is available on Amazon. He is also the author of "Hoop Dreams in Europe." He and his wife, Dr. Liz Driver, live in Warsaw, Poland and work for a humanitarian organization dealing with the needs in Ukraine. His website is daytondavid.com and email is davidsdriver@aol.com.
