Reusse: Delano baseball team returns to state for the first time since coach Toby Hanson got it there as a senior

The eight teams that reach the finals of the four Minnesota high school baseball classifications will be allowed to play for their championships on Saturday at Target Field. All will be thrilled to compete in those surroundings, perhaps dream of conquering that right-field porch as does former Minnesota high schooler Matt Wallner on occasion.

As for pristine playing conditions, those also will be impressive to the young athletes — although perhaps not a dramatic upgrade for the Delano Tigers were they to make a run to the Class 3A title game.

It was midafternoon Tuesday, and the No. 4-seeded Tigers were about to start arriving for a final practice. They will meet No. 5 Grand Rapids (a state tourney regular) late Wednesday afternoon at Jordan's Mini Met, another gem of a ballyard that's hard to beat.

This one, though: Delano Municipal, manicured by Joe Schleper and frequently improved through his imagination, well I had to ask this of Toby Hanson, 29, and in Season 1 as the Tigers' coach:

"Do these young ballplayers of yours appreciate what they have for a home field?"

Hanson said: "Yes, I think they do."

There were others devoted to this ballpark before Schleper, none more so than Dick Traen, the late titan of Delano baseball. The ivy that Traen planted on the outfield fences many decades ago was in such fine bloom Tuesday that the Cubs groundskeepers at Wrigley Field might have been envious.

Delano hosts a wood-bat prep tournament late in the season that's named for Traen. The Tigers defeated Orono 10-4 to win that four-team affair. That made Delano 2-0 for the season vs. Orono, which has become the Tigers' major rival in many sports.

"Both schools are about the same size, in the same classes and generally in the same sections," Hanson said. "They're only 20 minutes or so down the road, and the athletes grow up playing one another quite a bit."

Brody Geislinger is a junior and two-sport athlete at Delano: pitcher and power hitter in baseball, and a hockey player.

"I would say our rivalry with Orono is most intense in those two sports," Geislinger said. "They had us play each other on Minnesota's Hockey Day this winter. At Valleyfair; we beat them, 5-1. That was great."

Did you play 'em again?

"Section final; they beat us in overtime, 4-3, to go to the state," Geislinger said.

Not so great.

The Tigers pushed their baseball record to 3-0 vs. Orono with a 6-4 win in the Section 6 semifinals. Orono knocked out Benilde-St. Margaret's, another potent force, and then needed two wins over Delano in the double-elimination tournament.

The Spartans got the first, 6-1. Delano answered the pressure with a five-run first inning in the second game and won 8-2, with Geislinger finishing with four straight perfect innings.

And there it was: Delano had its first trip to the state baseball tournament since Toby Hanson was a senior star in 2014.

"The tournament was three classes then, and we were 2A," Hanson said. "We got one-runned by Glencoe in the first round."

Hanson was raised with a tremendous Delano baseball pedigree. His father, P.J., played at St. Cloud State and was a devoted townballer. His mother, Jeanne, was a Ditty, a famed Delano family of all-around athletes and baseball standouts.

Way back when, I covered Tom Ditty as a tremendous basketball player at St. Cloud State. "If Tom had been a one-sport guy and that was baseball, he might have been a big-leaguer," Hanson said.

Hanson had enough in his lefthanded bat to be recruited by the Gophers. He played four seasons, coach John Anderson admired his talent, but Toby kept running into injuries. As a junior in 2017, he led the Gophers with 57 RBI.

As a senior, he missed time with another injury, and then served as the designated hitter for what stands as the Gophers' last outstanding team — hopefully, not forever.

"We won the Big Ten, we won the Big Ten tournament, we went unbeaten in the regional, and I'm not sure why they sent us to Oregon State for a super regional," Hanson said. "There were five big leaguers on that team — Trevor Larnach, Adley Rutschmann, Nick Madrigal.

"Steven Kwan, too; and nobody even talked about him.

"I firmly believe if the NCAA sent us any place else, we would have made it to Omaha for the World Series."

He might be right — with strong pitching and the best fielding team you could hope to find in college baseball.

Soon, Hanson had his players sitting in the dugout for a pre-practice conversation. He read a note for the team from Rob Fornasiere, coach John Anderson's right-hand man with the Gophers.

The message from Fornasiere was, "Don't do anything different; play the game that got you this far, and stick to the fundamentals."

Hanson smiled and said: "That has been my name for him since I got to the Gophers — 'Fundamental Rob.' Let's listen to him."