CHAMPAIGN — In two days, they will be taking the field in what Dan Hartleb hopes is a successful defense of their Big Ten title. Hard to believe the Illinois baseball season is almost here.
Harleb, the school’s career leader in victories with 567 wins, joined former Illini star Darrin Fletcher for a recent WDWS radio appearance on “Monday Night SportsTalk,” at the Esquire Lounge.
On the first warm day in months, Hartleb came from a rare February outdoor practice.
His team has been working mostly inside Atkins Baseball Training Center, a state-of-the-art facility right next to Illinois Field that gives Hartleb’s team more of a level playing field with schools from the south and west.
“It’s one of the best indoors in the country,” Hartleb said. “When you have that type of facility, it helps you from a mechanical standpoint, from a skill standpoint. You get so many reps.
“Our guys can get in there any time they want. When they go, they don’t go alone. They go as a group. Guys are spending more time together. You grow closer. Team camaraderie. They push each other, and it makes your clubhouse really good.”
Illinois opens the 2025 season on Friday against Abilene Christian in Corpus Christi, Texas. The teams are playing a three-game series at Whataburger Field, named for the popular Southwest food chain. The avocado bacon burger sounds very tasty.
Forecasts in that part of Texas calls for temperatures in the 70s and a small chance for rain. Perfect baseball weather, especially for a team stuck inside for several months.
Good run
Hartleb enters his 20th season as Illinois head coach and 35th overall with the program. He worked with legend Itch Jones before taking over as head coach.
“I’ve been blessed to be here a long time,” Hartleb said.
Coaching has changed during his time at Illinois. Obviously, the transfer portal and name, image and likeness payments are new. But so is the way players allow themselves to be taught,
“You have to evolve,” Hartleb said. “It’s really, really different.”
Hartleb enjoys working with his current team and likes when he sees its grades. The team had a 3.6 GPA the first semester.
“They were outstanding with a lot of different things,” he said.
In an earlier appearance on “SportsTalk,” Illinois men’s golf coach Mike Small said he is pointing at the 2025 Big Ten title, in the first year with an expanded field of teams.
Does Hartleb feel the same way about Big Ten baseball with Oregon, Southern California, UCLA and Washington about to join the league standings this spring?
“I want to win every year,” Hartleb said. “It would be awesome to win that first go-around. The league’s gotten a lot better.
“Mike’s trying to win about his 10th in a row. I’d just like to win two in a row.”
Been there, done that
Retired after a 14-year MLB career as a catcher that ended in 2002, Fletcher knows the feeling players get right before the season.
Told “you look like you can still play,” the 58-year-old Fletcher brushed away the idea. His body knows better.
“Don’t ask me to bend over or squat or anything like that,” he said.
College baseball players don’t have a long time to get ready. Just back from winter break, they will be on the field after a month of training.
“You get outside maybe one time to see the ball at you as a hitter or in the outfield,” Fletcher said. “You’re always a little behind the eight-ball as a Northern team or Midwestern team going south.”
Fletcher favors a later start for the college season. But, he added, “it is always fun to leave the Midwest in February and go someplace warm to play.”
Fletcher went from Oakwood High School to starring in baseball at Illinois in the 1980s. He still holds the single-season record at Illinois with a .497 batting average in 1987 and was part of the Illinois athletics Hall of Fame class in 2018.
“But if it was a transfer portal, you bet your bottom dollar …”
Fletcher didn’t even finish the punchline. He wasn’t going anywhere else, with or without the portal.
Illinois was his dream school. His dad, Tom, played at Illinois and so did his son, Casey.
“In the short term, my goal was to play baseball for the University of Illinois,” he said. “I loved Illinois sports, followed basketball, football, everything.”
He started in pro baseball with the Dodgers organization and spent just two years in the minors leagues before getting the call up in 1989.
When he arrived in Los Angeles, the Dodgers had Mike Scioscia behind the plate and future Hall of Famer Mike Piazza in the system.
“I was caught in between,” Fletcher said.
Fletcher was traded to Philadelphia and later the Montreal Expos. He finished his career in Toronto.
How were the Phillies fans?
“This is a family show,” Fletcher said. “When I first got to Philadelphia in 1990, there was a guy who lifted up his kid, like in ‘The Lion King.’ He was screaming at us, saying, ‘My 4-year-old can hit better than you guys.’”
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