Wade Gleasman leaves a tradition of leadership and hustle for the new cadre in the Joseph High School baseball program. Head Coach Bob Barstad and Assistant Coach Dick Johnson will also be leaving JHS. Photo by Michael Lane

In what is probably his farewell appearance on the diamond, at least in a scholastic setting Joseph High School pitcher Wade Gleasman, was invited to the 1A/2A East-West All-Star high school baseball tournament at Linfield College, June 11-13.

The only Wallowa County representative on the East team, Gleasman did get the chance to pitch late in one game, though he was a little disappointed to be shifted from shortstop to the mound without a warmup in the bullpen, “to face 18 really good guys.” They were a big group, too. Not in numbers, but in size, noted Gleasman. “They were huge … pretty much the entire team was over 6 feet … there was a football camp that same weekend and I wondered if they’d got mixed up,” Gleasman joked.

It wasn’t a stressful game. While the coaches were looking to win, he said, the players were just out to have fun.

That was maybe just as well. The East team lost all three games to the West, which, Gleasman said, simply had a lot of talent.

Gleasman has spent over half his life playing baseball. He’s been pitching for nine years, starting out at age nine with the Joseph Red Sox in Little League, then moving on to the Rockies in Babe Ruth, and finally as leadoff pitcher for the JHS Eagles.

Gleasman played with the varsity, even as a freshman, and did get to pitch a little, he remembers.

“I pitched against Regis that year. I was so slow they couldn’t hit me … like 60 miles per hour,” he said.

His speed and skills improved steadily over his high school career. The stats given in the all-star game booklet look to be partial ones, Gleasman said, but are nonetheless impressive. In the 2004 season he went 8-0 in league games pitched, 14-1 for the entire season, with an ERA of 0.94, giving up only 33 hits and racking up 99 strikeouts.

Eagle head coach Bob Barstad pointed out that Gleasman did not pitch a losing game in league play in his final two years of high school ball.

“He brought leadership to the team. He wouldn’t give up or give in when the games got tough,” Barstad said.

What does Gleasman take away with him from a decade of baseball?

Mostly, how to accept things; to deal with stress. “I used to be so wound up … I was that jerk in Little League who’d yell at people when they made an error.” Now, he said, he doesn’t stress over the small stuff, on the field or in life.

Gleasman will be leaving Wallowa County to study to be a chiropractor at Southern Oregon University in Ashland.