EXCHANGE: A family has deep roots in baseball and softball

BEECHER, Ill. (AP) - Beecher Muskies manager Fred LeSage still remembers Todd Sippel's first season with the Muskies.

"He was 19 years old and couldn't hit a lick," LeSage said. "Him and this other guy were fighting over playing time, and they would always get into it, and I just wanted to cut them both."

Thirty years later, the 49-year-old Sippel still spends his summers donning the Muskie blue and white, now as a much better hitter.

"He came around, and as he matured, he became a real staple of this team," LeSage said. "And man, can he still swing the bat."

Over his career, Sippel, a Beecher resident, has compiled more than 1,000 hits and 500 RBIs on the way to a .314 career batting average. But despite all the success, Sippel's 2018 season was largely in doubt.

Over the winter, Sippel had an ablation to address atrial fibrillation, a type of irregular heartbeat, which he began to notice during the stretch run of the Muskies' 2017 season.

"It was actually during a game here last July," Sippel said of when he noticed something was wrong. "My heart started fluttering and I just didn't feel right. I thought I was just dehydrated and pulled myself from the game.

"This winter, it got worse, and (the doctors) said it was (atrial fibrillation), so they went in there and fixed it."

After the procedure, Sippel's wife, Missy, didn't expect her husband to play in his 30th season. But as the season approached, that changed.

"I didn't think he was going to (play) and kind of didn't want him to, but he loves it and it keeps him young," Missy Sippel said. "I was worried, but he seems to be doing OK."

Even for Todd Sippel, playing in 2018 wasn't a sure bet. But when doctors at Rush Medical Center in Chicago laid his options out on the table, he knew what path he wanted to take to recovery.

"(The doctors) said, 'Either you go on medicine for the rest of your life and never play another contact sport, because you'll be on blood thinners, or have this procedure,'" Sippel said. "I jumped at it and got it done."

Through the span of 1,114 games, Sippel has been around for plenty of magical moments, including each of the Muskies' eight trips to the NABF World Series between 2002 and 2010, culminating in the Muskies' 2010 World Series victory against the Joliet Dirtbags, where he recorded the last out on a high chopper from his position at third base.

"(LeSage) said, 'Once we in one of these regionals, we're going to win a bunch of them,' and as you can see, we started winning a bunch of them," Sippel said. "2010 was obviously the highlight of my Muskies career ... that was just unbelievable."

The Muskies' biggest fan the past three decades has been Sippel's mother, Tawny Lattz, who can be found at almost every Muskies home game.

"I love seeing him play," Lattz said. "I've been watching him play organized ball for 42 years, so watching him play is just wonderful."

Playing baseball at a high level isn't Sippel's only connection to America's pastime. After the 2018 season, he resigned as the head coach of Homewood Flossmoor High School's baseball team, but not before making history.

His 313 wins are the most in program history, and he has helped produce a pair of professionals. Former Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher John Ely called Sippel his coach, as did current Atlanta Braves pitching prospect Dan Lietz.

Aside from a pair of pros, Sippel started bringing former players to the Muskies in 2005. The Muskies play in the unlimited age division of NABF, meaning any players are eligible to play once they've graduated high school.

"You get to hand-pick the ones you want personalitywise, the ones you think are mature enough to handle it after a year of college experience," Sippel said. "There are only one or two with us every year, but they're with us for a reason. They're great kids and great players."

The reason Sippel stepped down from his post with the Vikings was simple - family. A father of two girls, junior Kaylie and eighth-grader Abby, he stepped away from coaching to devote more time to watching his daughters play softball.

"(Coaching) is really cool, but I'm ready to watch my girls play now," he said.

Kaylie spent the past two seasons on the Bobcats' varsity squad, winning the state championship as a freshman and finishing second as a sophomore this season. Abby plays for Beecher's junior high team, where Sippel coaches as well.

"He's like our No. 1 fan," Kaylie said. "He always helps me with what I'm doing wrong, so that's cool, and to have him at every game now will be awesome."

The adjustment of going from coach to fan in the stands came for Sippel when Kaylie reached the high school level, and for him, it took a little getting used to, particularly with heightened stakes in the state finals the past two years.

"It's great being in the stands watching," Sippel said. "It's nerve-wracking, because you can't control anything, but it was still great to see my daughter go through that."

According to Missy Sippel, his stepping down to watch his daughters with her has been a culmination of the family's ideals.

"That's what we've been living for, just to see how our girls do and see them exceed," she said. "They're great kids, they do it on their own, and we just get to sit back and watch them grow and enjoy it."

And for Lattz, she has joined in on the transition from watching her son to watching her granddaughters, no matter how busy the summer schedule might get.

"I'm loving every minute of it," Lattz said. "We're trying to figure out a time to go to California to visit my brother, but there's never a time when there isn't something going on."

It's not just Sippel, a Beecher graduate himself, and his daughters who have grown up with Bobcat blood. It is Todd's late father, Ernie, who Sippel Memorial Field is named after.

Prior to the 1987 season, Todd Sippel's senior year, Ernie Sippel spearheaded a project to renovate the baseball field into the local treasure it is today. The Sippels' neighbors at the time, the Hodgett family, lost their son, Mike, to a car accident. The Hodgetts dedicated money in his honor to get new dugouts, and Ernie Sippel's efforts turned what was supposed to be new dugouts into a scoreboard, fence and infield sod.

Four years after the field was renovated, Ernie Sippel passed away.

"When he passed, the coach came to me and said that he would love to name the field in Ernie's memory, and I thought there could be no better tribute," Lattz said. "Twenty-seven years later, I still get choked up ... about what he missed with (Kaylie and Abby)."

Missy Sippel knew from the very moment she met her future husband that their life together would revolve around sports.

"The first thing he asked me was, 'Are you a Cubs fan, or a (White) Sox fan?" Missy, who agreeably answered with the Cubs, said. "I think I saw a spark in his eye after that."

And now, after dozens of years as a player, a coach and a parent, Todd Sippel has firmly begun the transition to fully watching the game as a parent, but not until he has to hang it up with the Muskies, a time with no date set in stone.

"It really is year by year," he said. "(I) just have to make sure (I) don't have any major injuries, like heart surgery."

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Source: The (Kankakee) Daily Journal, https://bit.ly/2NOhkGj

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Information from: The Daily Journal, http://www.daily-journal.com