Small items kept appearing in the Twin Cities dailies revealing that the College of St. Scholastica was a baseball powerhouse. A Minneapolis sportswriter would see such an item and say:
"How can a small school from Duluth compete with the best Division III teams in this region?"
And then the Division III season would race past, and the reporter from the big city never got around to writing a column that answered the question.
Last week, it became too late to talk to the source of the Saints' success, when coach John Baggs, 43, died four months after being diagnosed with cancer. He is survived by wife Colleen, son Maddux, 8, and daughter Josie, 3, and, yes, the son is named in honor of Greg Maddux.
"Coach Baggs was diagnosed on Oct. 24th," assistant Joe Wicklund said. "He called in the coaches -- we all played for him -- and told us, then told the team. The diagnosis was daunting from the start, but we were optimistic.
"We all felt that if there was someone to turn around an impossible situation it was Coach. We had already seen him do that."
St. Scholastica started a baseball program in 1987. The winter workouts were held in a gymnasium. Home games were played at high school fields. The Saints won 34 games in five years.
Baggs had played at Iowa State and graduated with a journalism degree. Gene McGivern, the sports information director at St. Thomas, said: "I knew John at Iowa State, and I thought he was going to be a sportswriter."