Teammate remembers Libertyville High School baseball pro Butler
• The following is part of an ongoing series of articles in celebration of Libertyville High School's 100th anniversary.
Brett Butler moved to Libertyville in the winter of 1970, his seventh-grade year at Highland Middle School, my eighth-grade year. Before meeting him I had heard about this new student, a very outgoing, confident, and competitive sub-5-footer. I first met him on the basketball court and saw that everything I had heard about him was true.
I played against Brett in summer baseball in Pony League (13, 14, and 15 year olds) out at Butler Lake Park (not named after Brett). He played for the VFW, always the leadoff hitter, quite often laying down bunts, always playing a solid outfield.
In the fall of 1971, Brett's freshman year at Libertyville High School, Brett was up to 5 feet tall, playing B team quarterback. He didn't play much his sophomore football season so he switched to cross-country his junior year. By his senior year he was a top seven runner and a team captain.
Come winter, with his competitiveness, and there being weight classes, Brett decided to give wrestling a try. He was the 90-pound starter on the freshmen team. He was a varsity starter the next three seasons (98 pounds as a sophomore, 105 as a junior, 119 as a senior) earning All-Conference honors each season.
But baseball was always his favorite sport. He was a starter on the freshmen and sophomore teams in the outfield. His varsity team his junior year was a very good team. He split time early in the season at right field. With the other player hitting for a higher average in the early nonconference games, Brett's only playing time once the conference schedule began was pinch running and late defensive replacements
Brett began his senior season splitting time in the outfield. But halfway into the season it was obvious he was a top player and he never came out of the lineup from that point on. I first saw him play his senior year in the Regional Championship game vs. Zion-Benton as I was coming back from college. In that game he went 4-for-5 including a home run. I was impressed with how he was driving the ball after seeing him always bunting and slap hitting in the past.