Fort Lupton – “The Devil and Daniel Webster” is a classic short story by Stephen Vincent Benet.
Fort Lupton’s Blue Devils and coach Ray Garza are penning a longer work that’s in progress, a rags-to-riches baseball literary effort tickling Colorado schoolboy annals in perhaps a series of consummate chapters.
“You know, it exciting, unreal around here,” Garza gushed.
And why not? Fort Lupton stands atop the Class 5A-4A Skyline League at 9-0, 12-4 overall. Up a game with three to play, including at 2006 state runner-up Cherokee Trail on Friday, the Blue Devils’ next victory would clinch a share of their first league title since their oldest player was born – 1989.
Correct, that’s 4A Fort Lupton, an established high school that was won only six state titles in all sports, and none in the past 20 years.
No, it’s not a mystery, fiction or tabloid entry. The Blue Devils (15 players) have worked their way into 4A contention through sweat, commitment, community support and leadership, a hot baseball team threatening for its first league title in 18 seasons.
The story begins with the author, Garza, a former Eaton star who played in the 1988 and 1989 AA title games.
Now in his fourth season after stints as an assistant at Valley and Roosevelt, annually two of 3A’s solid ballclubs, Garza opted to head a program that had been winless in three years and was basically an expansion club when considering its low turnout and high turnover. As physical education and health teacher, he’s also a salesman.
“We have kids roaming the hall who could help us,” Garza said. “The key is the academic part. The minute a kid stops competing, and despite the wins and losses, their grades drop.”
In Garza’s debut, Fort Lupton limped in at 1-18, but it was a start. Improvement to 4-15, then 7-12, followed. Of course, this was after he first arrived and discovered that the team equipment had, ahem, disappeared.
“It was gone,” Garza said.
No bats, balls, helmets, gear or uniforms, although it was quickly rectified by a generous business community that anted up full regalia and “there were no questions asked,” Garza said.
His growing pains were not unlike those of his players. It was something new to rebuild a program, and he was doing it with student-athletes new to the game. He had first-timers who never dreamt of playing summer or fall ball, let alone taking grounders or getting into the hitting cage.
Having a catch? Garza, who dabbled in softball and coaches the girls basketball team, was simply trying to catch a sufficient number of players from a student body a little more than 700 strong and with more than half learning English.
“It brought me back to reality,” he said. “They didn’t understand the concept of a team game and what it takes to play on this level.”
Know how if a batter goes 3-for-10 it’s considered good?
“That’s how we were fielding,” Garza said. “We had double-digit errors in more than 50 percent (of the team’s games) in the first two years.”
But the game of failure has had less of it in 2007 for Fort Lupton, which opened 3-0 and has dropped only one in-state game (to Platte Valley). No kidding, the Blue Devils traveled to a tournament in San Diego, where they lost three of five – two were by one run – but sandwiched nine league victories around it, notably a 2-1 home win over Brighton last weekend.
The Blue Devils’ fun is flowing like the creeks from this week’s storm. Their outfield usually has the Brothers Pigg, Aaron and Jacob, as well as Joel Mudd.
Hence, Garza said, his pitchers are implored to throw strikes so opposing batters will hit it “into two Piggs and the Mudd.”
Jacob Pigg and Matt Stevens have split the dozen victories on the mound. The Piggs, Mudd, Javier Herrera, Stevens, Jessie Simpson, Zach Nash and Chris Sack have accounted for most of the offense that has reached 10 or more runs in eight games.
Winning the league title, Garza said, “would be a monumental step for us.”
Not bad for a team that used to be winless, but now has extra bleachers for growing interest.
“We told the kids to focus on this journey,” Garza said. “At the end, good things will happen.”
And new stories will be written.
Staff writer Neil H. Devlin can be reached at 303-954-1714 or ndevlin@denverpost.com.
