HUNTINGBURG – It’d been years for many, decades for some, since they put on a baseball uniform, rocked some cleats, swung a bat and/or pitched a ball.

But Saturday’s second annual Big League Baseball Classic at League Stadium, which ended in a 2-2 tie, gave some of those participants the opportunity.

“(It was) a long time ago – three, four years ago, at least,” said former Major League pitcher Armando Galarraga. “I’ve been doing some other events, but it’s not like you’re pitching actually like trying to throw hard, anything like that – more like a softball game and stuff like that. But it’s the first time I’ve pitched for a long time.”

(I last played) probably about three years ago – I did something similar to this in Springfield, Illinois, but other than that, that’s about it,” said former St. Louis Cardinals All Star closer and World Series Champion Jason Motte. “I coach high school baseball in Memphis – so I throw a little bit…but nothing like that. So, you get out there, you just kind of find yourself going back to some old habits and doing stuff.”

“I’ll be honest with you, this is the first time I’ve ever played in a game other than a fantasy camp,” said former Cardinals All Star and Rookie of the Year Vince Coleman. “I do those, but I always manage – I never went out and played, but this was a lot of fun. I haven’t swung a bat in almost 30 years and I was able to put the ball in play – so I feel pretty good about that.”

“I think I threw my last pitch that I ever thought I’d pitch here at League for the (Dubois County) Dragons,” said former Jasper ace and current Wildcats assistant Andy Noblitt. “Getting one more opportunity to go out there that I never thought – I really did, I thought I’d never put spikes on again, and I’d never throw another pitch. And to get to come back to League Stadium and pitch tonight, it sure was a treat.”

Yet, Noblitt went out and did it to prove to himself that he could still throw and played with some former professionals he watched on TV – and also played with his son, Andrew, a 2024 Jasper grad who eventually became the No. 1 on the mound for the Wildcats himself; and Andy and Andrew became the first father-son duo to play in the Big League Baseball Classic.

Andy just found himself thankful to be on the same team as his son, while Andrew reunited with former high school teammates Kai Kunz, a 2025 Jasper grad, and also Jack Levin, who will graduate from JHS in 2026.

“It’s really cool,” Andrew said. “We spent all of those years together and we made a lot of memories in the locker room, on the field, off the field – it’s just good to be around them playing baseball.”

Yet, the Big League Baseball Classic rosters worked in such a way this year that the Noblitts, Kunz and Levin found themselves on one team, while another Jasper assistant, Jeff Zink found himself coaching against them in Saturday’s game as an assistant for Team Greulich – named for Forest Park coach Kyle Greulich.

“It was funny, because all the Jasper guys were in the other dugout, right? And our dugout was full of Southridge guys,” Zink said. “So, it was cool to see it from the other side – I joked around with Levin and Andrew right before that I was going to give the scouting reports on the Southridge guys. It’s all fun, it’s an exhibition – the Southridge guys were great, they were fun to talk to and it was great to kind of look across the field and see those guys, too.”

The former Jasper players Zink coached against played for Team Woolems, named for Northeast Dubois coach Luke Woolems. Last year saw Jasper’s Terry Gobert and Southridge’s Gene Mattingly coach against each other in the first classic, but this year had Woolems and Greulich get their turns to represent their respective programs on this stage.

“I tell you what – when you get the phone call, this is something that you can’t pass up,” Greulich said. “It was an experience of a lifetime – when you walk into the clubhouse and you see Scott Spieizio and Jason Isringhausen…There’s just so many memories as a child coming back. But to get a chance to do this is something I’ll never forget.”

“It was almost a dream come true doing that stuff -Jason Motte, Jason Isringhausen, Vince Coleman, it was awesome, and Brian Jordan,” Woolems said. “Those guys – they are so down-to-earth and you see them on TV and watch them growing up and to be able to just hang out with them, they’re just such normal guys and cool. Jason Motte, he’s a firebug full of energy, and it was a blast.”

Some of these former Cardinals happened to be teammates with Hall of Famer and Jasper grad Scott Rolen, who suited up for the Redbirds from 2002 through 2007, and some of those ex-teammates in St. Louis talked about him to The Herald Saturday night.

“I know he’s kind of a big deal around here,” Isringhausen said of Rolen. “He made it to the Hall of Fame – which is well-deserved, and being a teammate of his for a number of years, not a better feeling knowing that he’s at third base behind you.”

“(Rolen) always said he loved it here,” Spieizio said. “And I always kind of wondered where it was at – and then when I was driving here today, I’m like, ‘That’s a Jasper sign, I wonder if Rolen’s around here.’ And yeah, it popped right back into my mind when I saw it – because I actually didn’t know we were going to be close to Jasper. I knew where the stadium was, but I didn’t know the hotel was going to be in Jasper, stuff like that.”

Spieizio wore a Cardinals hat, and his socks depicted the Los Angeles Angels halo logo – as Spiezio helped the-then Anaheim Angels win the 2002 World Series for the first and so far only championship for the franchise before winning a ring with Rolen in 2006.

He was a second-generation Major Leaguer, as his father, Ed, also played – so Ed naturally instilled advice in his son on his own path to the Majors.

“My dad just told me to work hard,” Scott said. “He’d take me to Old Timers games and there’d be guys like Bob Gibson and Lou Brock and Stan Musial – and guys like that, and they’d just say, ‘Hey, it’s easy to get to the Big Leagues, it’s hard to stay there,’ so you got to work hard every day, there’s always somebody outworking.

“And that’s what I tell people, ‘Work your butt off,'” he continued. “Try to imagine that everybody else in the world is trying to take your job and you got to outwork them.”

Meanwhile, one of the most infamous blown calls in MLB history came in 2010 when Galarraga pitched for the Detroit Tigers against the-then Cleveland Indians. A safe call at first base by umpire Jim Joyce denied Galarraga a perfect game, when replay showed he recorded what would’ve been the 27th out – something Joyce himself later admitted to.

A call like that would almost certainly be reversed in today’s game, yet the game didn’t have the luxury of expanded replay back then. However, rather than lash out or hold a grudge, Galarraga kept his poise and cool about him regarding the situation despite the call costing him a perfecto.

“Nobody has control of what is coming to your life, but you can control the way you react to it,” he said. “In your life, you don’t have any control at all – a million things can happen to you, but you can control the way you’re going to react. So, the way you’re going to react is the way you will solve some things.”

This night provided memories that many are bound to cherish for a long time, if not the rest of their lives. However, it also provided a chance for some to learn and maybe apply to the spring when the 2026 high school baseball season rolls around.

“The professionalism of the Major League guys – they were the first ones in the locker room, they were the first guys to reach out to guys that as they came in, said hello, and their professionalism was on display the entire night,” Andy said. “That’s a big thing for our young guys, especially the ones that got to play tonight, they got to be around those guys and to see no one’s bigger than the game. It’s all about being a good teammate and about being a good person and I thought they put that on demonstration from the time we walked in today.”

“The one thing about these guys – I told them who needed to throw and who was going to pitch every inning, but they took care of the little stuff, the details; and who was going to go warm up a pitcher, who was going to go down there and catch a bullpen and moving around at different positions and how to get ready to play the game,” Woolems said. “These guys are professionals and they know how that stuff works and they don’t have to be told.

“A lot of times, high school kids, we got to tell everybody where to be all the time – they just don’t take it upon themselves sometimes,” he continued. “And that’s something I think I can talk to my kids about going forward and going, ‘Hey, we got to look at the whole team, you got to look at the whole process. And what do we need everybody to do, what are all the parts that need to be put together to make this thing happen?'”