The Delgado baseball team is celebrating its 50th anniversary as Louisiana\u2019s first junior college athletics program.<\/p>\n
Founded by Louis \u201cRags\u201d Scheuermann, Delgado joined the national junior college baseball ranks in 1976 and has had plenty of success since. Scheuermann\u2019s son, Joe, became the Dolphins\u2019 coach in 1990 following his father\u2019s retirement and still serves in that role after more than 1,200 wins.<\/p>\n
Delgado has reached the NJCAA World Series six times with teams primarily made up of players from the New Orleans area. A 50th anniversary celebration will take place Saturday at Kirsch-Rooney Stadium, where the Dolphins play home baseball games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a 13-year-old kid when my dad started this program,\u201d Joe Scheuermann said. \u201cNow here we are, 50 years later. The old phrase time moves fast when you\u2019re having fun is really what happened here. My dad had a dream, and I\u2019m trying to fulfill what he started.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s anniversary event will include Delgado baseball alumni, some of which played on the program\u2019s first team.<\/p>\n
\u201c(This Saturday) is a celebration of what our program is about,\u201d Scheuermann said. \u201cAt the end of the first year, (Rags Scheuremann) presented a plaque to the team that said, \u2018the start of an image.\u2019 We\u2019re pretty proud of the image that we\u2019re carrying on.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019ll be a busy weekend for Delgado, which plays a doubleheader on Friday in Summit, Mississippi, before returning home for Saturday\u2019s celebration followed by a home game on Sunday against Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s Delgado team has 27 freshmen, making it one of the youngest groups Scheuermann has coached in his 36 years leading the program.<\/p>\n
\u201c(27 freshmen) is a very unique situation here,\u201d Scheuermann said. \u201cIt\u2019s a year of us trying to mature quicker than we\u2019re normally used to doing. It\u2019s a work in progress, but we\u2019re getting better every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lakeshore alum Dominick Letort and Rummel alum Gavin Kennedy are off to strong starts at the plate for Delgado. The two freshmen have batting averages of better than .400.<\/p>\n
Freshmen Sebastian Rhoades and Riley Rowell have also been key pieces this season. Rhodes has shined as Delgado\u2019s shortstop, and Rowell has made a two-way impact as a hitter and a pitcher.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Delgado pitcher Giancarlo Arencibia, a former Rummel star, has been a fixture in the weekend rotation as a freshman. The right-hander has a 2.34 ERA and 53 strikeouts in 42\u2153 innings.<\/p>\n
STAFF PHOTO BY SPENCER URQUHART<\/p>\n
Rummel alum Giancarlo Arencibia is a returning sophomore who was a go-to starting pitcher as a freshman. He and sophomore Aidan Grab, a Mandeville graduate, have been Delgado\u2019s top starting pitchers this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been working on my changeup a lot more (this season),\u201d Arencibia said. \u201cWe have confidence in our rotation, and I like the group of guys that I\u2019m with. It\u2019s going to be a good weekend celebrating 50 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arencibia is committed to UNO for next season.<\/p>\n
Delgado (6-7) has 27 regular-season games left on its schedule. The Dolphins last reached the NJCAA World Series in 2023.<\/p>\n
Scheuermann hopes Saturday\u2019s event will become an annual occurrence. The celebration begins at 4 p.m. with a live band and local food vendors.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen my father started this program, we were the only junior college (in Louisiana) to play athletics for a long time after that,\u201d Scheuermann said. \u201cHe was a trailblazer for what was to come. We\u2019re proud of that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Delgado baseball team is celebrating its 50th anniversary as Louisiana\u2019s first junior college athletics program. Founded by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":609766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2289],"tags":[5,648,14310,1694,2341],"class_list":{"0":"post-609765","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-college-baseball","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-college-baseball","10":"tag-hardwall","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-baseball"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116182452956330218","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}