Fairmont West ’66 champs reminisce

Baseball teammates enjoy class reunion.

Contact this contributing writer at PamDillon@woh.rr.com.

It’s great to get together with old school buddies, especially if you have exciting memories of pulling together as a team to win a state baseball championship. That was the case when the Fairmont West Class of 1966 held their 50th reunion on July 22-23.

They got together at a casual mixer at Heatherwoode Golf Club on Friday, and again at a formal dinner party the next day at Moraine Country Club.

Reminiscing all these years later were: pitcher Curt McCormick of Miamisburg; pitcher Steve Pease of Bradenton, Fla.; first baseman Mike Gantz of Centerville; second baseman Ron Zaremski of Columbus; third baseman Tom Madliger of Springboro; shortstop Kent Bradford maintains two homes: in Van Wert, Ohio, and The Villages in Florida; catcher Don Harlow of Naples, Fla.; right fielder John Armbruster of Oceanside, Calif.; and centerfielder Kipp Kastens of Columbus. Leftfielder Bob Reinert was unable to travel from Marquette, Mich., due to illness.

“What made the team unique is that all starting positions were filled by seniors: eight field positions and two pitchers. Nine of those 10 seniors attended the reunion,” said Madliger, retired from senior management at Reynolds & Reynolds and Automatic Data Processing. “It was the first time the team had been reunited over the 50 years.”

Team captain Madliger was following a family tradition at third base. His father Orville played in a state championship game that Fairmont lost in 1945. Twenty-one years later, Fairmont was on top and Pease and Harlow were awarded all-state honors. Harlow was inducted into the Kettering Fairmont Athletic Hall of Fame in 2015.

“I think the key to our success was the fact that we were all seniors and had a lot of experience playing together, some of us since the seventh grade. Our team chemistry was incredible,” Harlow said.

The coach of that winning team was Bob Hildreth. A highlight from that state championship game, 3-1 against Tallmadge: Zaremski’s diving catch for the final out.

“(After winning) We went back to the hotel, jumped into the pool with our wool uniforms on and nearly drowned,” said Bradford, a retired corporate lawyer.

That 1966 team is the only Fairmont baseball team to win a state championship in the school’s history. Madliger was instrumental in getting most all of the players back for the reunion. Each returning player received a commemorative baseball bat, inscribed with their name and “Ohio State Baseball Champions 1966.” Each had all the other teammates sign their bat. Reinert’s inscribed bat was signed by everyone and mailed to him.

“It was terrific seeing all of them recently at our class reunion. We talked (to Reinert) for several minutes by phone,” said Zaremski, medical equipment company owner. “We relived some of the tremendous experiences that we had on our journey together through the state tournament.”

A total of 512 students graduated from Fairmont West back in 1966. Of that total, 150 classmates made it to the reunion. After all the speeches were done, the nine returning baseball champs got into a huddle to shout, “Go Dragons!”

It was just like old times.

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