CARLTON FLETCHER: Finding ghosts on a 3-by-5 index card

I was going through some old stuff the other day when I came upon it. It was worn with the passage of 45-plus years, and the writing — in pencil — was all but faded to illegibility.

But there it was, a 3-by-5 index card with the goals that had been taped to the inside bill of my cap during the 1973 high school baseball season. As Robbie Roberson sang, “Man, that sure stirred up some ghosts for me.”

We had a new coach at Irwin County High in 1973, L.M. “Bozie” Wesson, and it became apparent from the get-go that he knew his baseball. The team had had a sub-mediocre, sub-.500 season the year before, and there was not a lot of championship speculation surrounding the Indians in ‘73.

One of the things Wesson did before the season started was have the players write their individual and team goals on those aforementioned index cards and tape them inside the bill of our caps. That way, he told us, we’d always be reminded of what we wanted to accomplish during the season.

We all have those memories in life that remain vivid no matter how much time passes. I’ll never forget this exchange I had with Coach Wesson.

HIM: “Fletcher, you got your goals in your cap?”

ME: “Yes, sir, coach.”

HIM: “Let me take a look. Hmmm, you say you want to hit .275 for the year? Son, if you hit .275, we’ll win the region.”

(A note here: I think if I hadn’t made the team the year before as a freshman and hadn’t played football, I probably wouldn’t have even made the Irwin baseball team in 1973. During tryouts and after the team was picked, I couldn’t hit a lick. I was fast and I knew the game, but I just couldn’t hit during pre-season batting practice. I earned a starting position (first base), but I was placed in the No. 9 slot in the batting order. I’m sure if we’d had DHs back then, I probably would have been a defensive specialist.)

But, as we all know, things sometimes have a funny way of working out. I did hit above .275 that year, .429 actually. And while we didn’t win the region championship, we did kind of (over)achieve what Wesson said we could: We won the state championship.

Most people don’t believe in that “team of destiny” stuff, but the way that dream 1973 season went down, I think we could have changed a few people’s minds. We “backed into” the playoffs, only getting one of two slots from our region when one of the top-ranked teams in the league actually lost on the final day of the season to the last-place team in the region.

Then the magic happened. We kept advancing, eventually getting a shot in the South Georgia finals against Mt. de Sales, the private Macon Catholic school that had not lost a game in a couple of years. But we beat them and earned the chance to host Atlanta’s M.D. Collins in the finals.

We had a wonderful pitcher on the team — Larry Hyman, who would sign with the Boston Red Sox when he graduated — and a group of gritty guys who just loved to play the game. Former Tifton Gazette sports writer Gary Shelton summed it up best in a column he wrote in advance of the title series: “No, this Irwin team is not impressive. They just win. And they’re now two wins away from a state championship.”

It seems we did what we had to do to win, never relying on just one guy to carry us. A perfect example was the state finals with Collins.

As I said, I’d hit way beyond anybody’s expectations during the year — moving up to No. 2 in the batting order — and I’d had pretty good series leading up to the finals. I remember at batting practice the day before the championship series, I was pounding line drives all over the park.

So we get into the games — a double-header at our place — and after lining out my first time at bat, I struck out seven times in a row! I had, to that point, struck out only once during the season.

Meanwhile, our right fielder, Eddie Giddens, who had not exactly had a stellar year at the plate, got the game-winning hits in both games.

That was my junior year of school. We went to the state finals again the next year and lost, then Irwin won the championship again in 1975, a mini-dynasty from a program that had to that point never been exactly world-beaters.

I remember riding home in the car with Coach Wesson and several other players, dejected, after the loss to Harlem High School in the 1974 finals. We were talking about life, and I remember saying, “I know all the things my dad has done for me, and I really wish I could repay him.”

My coach said, “Son, you’ve done that with the things you’ve accomplished as part of this team.”

I didn’t really know what he meant until I had a son of my own.

Email Carlton Fletcher at [email protected]. Follow on Twitter @ABH_Fletcher.