‘It’s nice for us to be No. 1’: 50 years later, coach, players recall Richland baseball’s 1st section title

By: Chris Harlan
Saturday, February 15, 2025 | 11:01 AM

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Whenever Rick Frederick visits the Pine-Richland gym nowadays, he admires the baseball banner hanging on the wall, the one that lists 18 section titles.

The first was in 1975.

He knows with certainty that the Rams couldn’t have won a section title any earlier. That’s because the high school didn’t have a varsity baseball team until he lobbied to start one that year, and he became their first coach.

In Year 1, they won the section.

“I’m really proud that the first number up there is 1975,” he said. “It’s nice for us to be No. 1.”

Exactly 50 years later, Frederick decided now was the perfect time to reunite and reminisce. More than a dozen players from that inaugural Richland High School baseball team traveled from as far away as Texas to gather Feb. 1 for a reunion.

The former players met for an afternoon tailgate at Rick and Carolyn Frederick’s home and were honored later that night at an annual Pine-Richland baseball fundraising event organized by current coach Kurt Wolfe at Richland fire hall.

In attendance from the 1975 team were Bob Albrecht, Dave Becker, Jeff Becker, Tim Corcoran, Jim Good, Chris Hudac, Dave Lewis, Jeff Lyons, Dru Rezzetano, Dave Santacroce, Greg Santacroce, Jeff Waugh and Erv Weischedel. Linda Fleming represented her late husband, Rich.

“I thought it was important that we honor the first-ever team,” said Wolfe, who is entering his 20th season as Pine-Richland’s coach. “It’s important that we know who came before us and know where it all started. I was excited to meet those guys, just because I wanted to show them what they created, what they started and how far we’ve come.”

Pine-Richland has become one of the WPIAL’s top baseball programs, winning six district titles and one state championship. But Frederick can recall a time when the school had no baseball.

A former college third baseman at Slippery Rock, Frederick was working in the district as an elementary school physical education teacher when, in 1974, he heard administrators were thinking about eventually starting a team. In the meantime, he asked to form a baseball club, which he likened to an after-school French club or debate club.

“They said, ‘Yes, you may, but there’s no guarantee you’ll be the (eventual varsity) baseball coach,’ ” Frederick said. “I took the challenge.”

It was a way for him to stir interest in the sport and start building team camaraderie.

“I got to mix two different communities, because we have Richland Township and Pine,” said Frederick, noting that the two, at the time, were somewhat rivals. “They’d always played against each other (in youth baseball), but in high school I got to mesh them together, build some chemistry and learn their talents.”

When an official WPIAL-sanctioned team was created in 1975, Frederick was chosen as coach. He already had worked as an assistant football coach at Richland, which didn’t become Pine-Richland until 1993.

Corcoran, who later played at Slippery Rock, was the baseball team’s MVP and pitching ace. The Santacroce brothers, also standouts, were sons of athletic director Ossie Santacroce. The 1975 team finished 16-7 and reached the WPIAL quarterfinals.

Before the reunion, Frederick had T-shirt made to commemorate the 1975 section title. He also brought with him a baseball from the team’s first playoff win, a 4-2 victory over Center.

“I’ve had that ball for 50 years,” he said. “I presented it in front of everybody to Dave Lewis, who was the winning pitcher. It was only fitting that he has that ball and keeps it in his family. He earned it.”

There were challenges to overcome in those early years that seem hard to imagine now.

Frederick said the team didn’t have its own field and had no budget for a junior varsity squad, which he insisted was vital to the program’s success. He said he got permission to play games at Pie Traynor Field in North Park and sought out some donated uniforms from community teams for the JV players to wear.

“They were the old wool uniforms like I grew up with,” Frederick said. “I got some white ones, some light gray, some dark gray. Me and my wife went to the laundromat, and we dyed them all dark gray.”

The varsity team wore green pinstriped uniforms in 1975, a style that the current Rams wear at times nowadays as a tribute to that first season. Wolfe had the uniforms specially ordered about four years ago.

“I made replicas to honor them,” Wolfe said, “because I wanted my players to know where it all started.”

Chris Harlan is a TribLive reporter covering sports. He joined the Trib in 2009 after seven years as a reporter at the Beaver County Times. He can be reached at charlan@triblive.com.

Tags: Pine-Richland