I’ve been around the block a time or two when it comes to amateur baseball. Never, in all my years have I experienced, nor have I seen, anything like what the Howard Insurance team was in Noblesville in the 1970s and 1980s.

It was a team which consisted, for the most part, of 14- and 15-year-olds. A player had to be good, darned good, to make the team as a 13-year-old. Maybe in that 20-year period there were a half-dozen 13-year-olds.

It was a travel team long before we knew about travel teams. The major difference in that team, from travel teams today, nearly all of the players were from Noblesville. Along with being sponsored by Howard Insurance the team also was funded by what was called City-Township Recreation. City-Township rules stated all players had to be from Noblesville.

In the first couple of years, the summers of 1967 and 1968, there were a few players from other Hamilton County communities. It was 1967 when the team made one of its strongest runs in the postseason Babe Ruth tourney, reaching the final three teams in the state tourney before being eliminated by Crown Point. In a tourney played in New Castle, Crown Point then lost to Terre Haute and that Terre Haute team went on to win the World Series in Alaska.

I’ll tell you a funny story about Crown Point. As a young kid and a hot-shot coach thinking I was another Don Dunker, or Glen Harper or Bill McClain, I decided to scout Crown Point in the area tourney, knowing we would play them at the state. They had a catcher who absolutely killed us. The kid didn’t even play in the game I scouted.

End of my scouting days. End of being a hot-shot coach.

The closest thing to a travel team in those days was Dunker’s American Legion team, which also consisted mainly of Noblesville players.

With the sponsorship of Howard Insurance and City-Township Recreation, money was never a problem. City-Township Recreation had some weird funding guidelines. You could buy equipment such as baseballs, bats, etc. and uniforms, but nothing else. We had more money for equipment than was needed. Spend it, or lose it.

Remember what I told you earlier, this was the only team in the 13-15 age group in Noblesville at that time, at least in the early years of Howard Insurance. The roster, each summer for probably five or six years, was never higher than 20 kids.

Howard Insurance never lacked for competition.

Throughout the summer (summer baseball in those days being June through July), the team played in the Hamilton County Pony League.

It was a tough league. Man, I mean it was tough. The big rival was Arcadia. When Noblesville and Arcadia played at Forest Park the bleachers and grandstand were jammed. Carmel was tougher than nails. So were Westfield, Fall Creek, Cicero, Fishers and Sheridan.

Howard Insurance wasn’t exactly well-liked by the rest of Hamilton County. Every so often, in the early days, Howard Insurance would pluck away an outstanding player from one of the other teams. Then, there was our budget; our travel, our uniforms  - things the other folks didn’t have. Even today I have guys who played on those county teams tell me how much they wanted to beat Howard Insurance. And, by golly often they did.

Some of the best 13-15 teams in Indiana, and from other states, came to Forest Park to play Howard Insurance. And, when Howard Insurance wasn’t at home, the team was on the road playing the better teams in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio.

It wasn’t easy, in the beginning, scheduling top-notch teams. South Bend was the hotbed of Babe Ruth in the late 1960s, when the Howard Insurance scheduling got underway. South Bend was the twice defending state champion. Noblesville was a little town with a little Babe Ruth program that was nothing more than a dot on the map in the Babe Ruth world.

I went to South Bend and pleaded for a game. They agreed to “work us in” on a Sunday afternoon. We had played in Michigan on Friday and Saturday and were scheduled for a league doubleheader in Sheridan Sunday evening. I don’t recall the score, but we beat South Bend.

Scheduling became easier after that and after advancing to the state finals later that summer.

I could go on and on, but tomorrow I’ll wrap up this series  on Howard Insurance and how summer baseball once was.