Oscar Hansen

Back in my younger days, I played a lot of softball every summer while I was living in Morris. We traveled the three-state area and usually played over 100 games a year, including our league schedule. One of my favorite all-time trips was to Wabasso to play in their tournaments. The organizer of those tournaments was Leo Grossman, whose brother Ollie was on our team. I am sure that Ollie had mentioned several times to Leo how good a team that the Sunwood Inn team was. So, Leo told Ollie to bring that hot-shot team down to softball country – Wabasso, to see some real softball!!

So, in the summer of 1974, we took the two-hour drive and landed there Friday night for our first game. We DID have a good team, and we took along another good player to fill out our roster. Lo and behold, we 10-run ruled every team to win the tournament. Leo wasn’t very happy with me as our manager, since he thought we loaded up with a bunch of ringers. We didn’t, but Leo was upset. It was in the first game of this tournament that I witnessed the best umpiring call I have ever seen. Our left fielder was Keith Swanson, an outstanding player, but he was known to argue with umpires over any close calls. Leo got wind of that, and forewarned the local umpires that this could be a problem. And wouldn’t you know it, in our very first game, Keith was on second base, and the batter hit a single down the line. The left fielder was Hall of Fame player Lee Patton from Redwood Falls, and he threw a frozen rope to home to catch Keith coming home. It was a bang-bang play, and the ump came up and hollered, “You’re out!!”. Immediately, Keith jumped up and said, “What?” and the ump very calmly pointed to the plate and said, “Well either you’re out, or you’re out,” as he pointed to the parking lot. Keith’s response was, “I guess I was out!”

As I mentioned, Leo wasn’t very happy with me, so the next year he didn’t invite our Morris team back to the tournament. But, it just so happened that Keith has gotten a teaching job in Springfield, and as a result, had gotten an invitation to the 1975 tournament. So that year, we took the same team, but came as Springfield. We won the tournament again that year, and Leo was pretty upset with me.

On to 1976, and I had taken a job back in my hometown of Tyler. When the invitations came around, Morris and Springfield were not invited. So that year, that same team went as Tyler, and we won the tournament for the third time in a row. Leo was steaming at me, but he eventually got over it.

Unfortunately, Leo started to have some health problems. Diabetes has set in, and he was having multiple surgeries.

I was living in Minneapolis at the time, and we had a group called CORES (Coaches, Officials, Referees, Educators and Sports Fans). It was a great group of sports people, and at one of our monthly meetings, we were telling stories about Leo as he was going through some tough times. And one the coaches stood up and said, “The first time I went to see Leo, he has lost some toes. The next time I stopped, he had lost part of his leg. The last time I was there, he had lost a hand.”

The greatest Master of Ceremonies in Minnesota, Dick Jonckowski, stood up and said, “You know, he would have a lot better shot at it if you would stop visiting him!!” Ultimately, Leo passed away, but he left us all with some great memories. Rest in peace, my friend.

Ever since those days, I have a real soft center in my heart for the community of Wabasso. They have had some really good teams in every sport, especially in wrestling. I had joined a City Rec Basketball League and one of the guys I played with was Dan Zimmer. He was definitely one of the top players on the floor, and I knew he was from Wabasso. So, one time I asked him how their basketball team had done when he was in high school. He said he didn’t play basketball, he was a wrestler. Not only that, but he was a state champion wrestler. I was shocked, since the words wrestler and great basketball player don’t collide in the same sentence very often. Great athlete, better person from Wabasso.

I also became very good friends with the Goblirsch family, who lived in Wabasso, but Bernie took a job managing the elevator in Tyler in 1975. He and Donna moved their family to Tyler, but it was Greg’s senior year, and he was the quarterback on the football team, so he stayed with his uncle while the rest of the family headed to Tyler. Wabasso’s loss, since Renee and Pam were two of our best athletes at Tyler High School, helping establish a long run of success in volleyball, basketball and track. Ron and Steve were terrific athletes at Tyler, although Steve did graduate from TMB when Bernie took a new job in Tracy. But the Goblirsch family has remained great friends,so Wabasso’s loss was Tyler’s gain.

Since I started writing sports for the Independent, I have gotten to know several of the coaches, including Tiffany Eichten at Wabasso. She has had incredible success as the girl’s softball coach, and was the Independent Softball Coach of the Year last season, taking Wabasso to state for the first time in 15 years. She was the Tomahawk Coach of the Year this season. The softball team had a tremendous season in 2026, earning the number one seed in the section. I had read about her husband, Christopher, in the Marshall paper for years. In high school, they were both three-sport athletes, with Tiffany playing volleyball, basketball and softball at Springfield. Her team went to state in basketball in 2007, and her softball team got 4th place in 2005 in softball, then they were state champions in 2006. Her brother is the head coach for Springfield baseball, and her sister-in-law is the head softball coach at Springfield. In addition, her Dad, Al Wilhelmi, played many years of fastpitch softball, and taught the family the art of softball well.

Chris scored over 1,100 points in his high school career, and he was an outstanding baseball player for both Wabasso and SMSU, where he was an Academic All-American in 2012. Chris was a four-year letterman in football, basketball and baseball at Wabasso. He took his Wabasso football team to the State twice in football, and twice in baseball, where they were state champions in 2008. So, meeting most of the Eichten family while I was covering softball games has been a real plus. In addition to being a very successful coach, she and Chris are raising five future athletes, who I am sure will be superstars that we will be hearing about soon. They didn’t quite make it to the state this year, but with four daughters coming up, I can see continued success down the road. And their son will probably break all of Chris’s records at Wabasso.

As you can tell, I have fond memories of my times and the friends I have met from Wabasso. Even though I am I die-hard RTR fan, I will always have a soft spot for Wabasso. Thanks for the memories!!

— Oscar Hansen is a correspondent with the Marshall Independent