Ingle having ‘A-ball’
By Steve Behr

WINSTON-SALEM — In the world of free agency and big money in sports, Randy Ingle is the exception, not the rule.

In 1979, Ingle was drafted in the 13th round out of Appalachian State by the Atlanta Braves. Twenty-seven years later, the Braves still sign his paychecks.

He signed a contract in 1979 and has not left the organization since. He played eight years and made it as high as Triple-A ball. Following his playing days, Ingle was an assistant coach for five years and has been a manager at the minor-league level the past 14 years.

All of those assignments have been in the Braves’ organization.

Ingle is currently the manager of the Myrtle Beach (S.C.) Pelicans, the Braves’ high level Single-A farm team in the Carolina League. He was selected to be in the Appalachian State Athletic Hall of Fame last week and was in North Carolina this past weekend where his Pelicans took on the Winston-Salem Warthogs.

“I’m very, very honored,” Ingle said. “That award is right now — I’m beyond words to be selected and chosen to be in the Hall of Fame at Appalachian. It’s just thrilling. It’s a very big honor to be chosen.”

The ‘can’t miss’ recruit:

Ingle is the all-time leader in hitting at Appalachian State, finishing his three-year stint (1977-79) with a .404 batting average. A native of Forrest City, he was recruited out of East Rutherford High School by former ASU coach Jim Morris, who first talked to Ingle following an American Legion game in Shelby.

During his senior high school season back in 1976, Ingle, a right-hander, went 17-0 on the mound with an ERA of 0.11. Ingle, the conference’s player of the year, tossed 16 complete games and picked up another win when he came on in relief of a teammate.

East Rutherford won a state championship that year and Ingle was drafted in the 10th round by the Minnesota Twins. Several colleges recruited Ingle out of high school, but it was his meeting with Morris and assistant coach Gary Robinson that got him interested in Appalachian State.

Morris saw a chance to sign one of the top players in Appalachian State history, but did not have the scholarship money at the time.

“We got him late and I went to Jim Jones, our athletic director and said that our money was gone,” Morris said. “He had said that if we saw a legitimate chance to sign a sure thing and if the money was gone, he would go out on a limb and get some. He said ‘You better be sure.’”

Morris was very sure. Once Ingle visited the campus, he was sold.

“They came to watch the game in Shelby and after the game, they came down and introduced themselves and we got to talking a bit and they wanted me to go up and visit the campus,” Ingle said. “Right then it just seemed like by the way I was approached that they were down to earth. So we went up and toured the campus and I liked the campus, which was beautiful and had a lot of things to offer. The program seemed to be good and when I went back down the mountain with my mom and dad, I knew that was pretty much it.”

Ingle won all three games he pitched during the fall season at Appalachian. When he wasn’t pitching, he played shortstop and outfield and showed that he could hit for both average and power. He played infield in high school and the Twins, though they drafted Ingle as a pitcher, hinted that he could play infield if the pitching did not work out.

Ingle said Morris one day asked him where he wanted to play.

“I wanted to hit,” Ingle said. “That way I could play every day, so he said all right. So there was no more pitching.”

He was moved to shortstop after the starter, Randy McDaniel, got injured early in the fall season. Ingle moved in and hit .365 as a freshman, .375 as a sophomore and .477 as a junior.

“Once we put him there, we never moved him,” Morris said. “He led the conference in everything. He was a Cal Ripken type, a power hitter instead of a little slap hitter. He was a big guy who hit in the middle of the order.”

Ingle was also an All-American his junior season and was .005 of a point from leading the nation in hitting. He was .003 of a point heading into Appalachian State’s final game of the season, which was at Virginia Tech.

Ingle got two hits against the Hokies, but the eventual batting champion also got two hits that day and kept his lead. Ironically, Ingle made his only two errors of the season in that game when two of his throws, made after he picked up ground balls deep in the hole, were short-hopped to first base.

He saved his best game, according to Morris, for East Tennessee State in his senior year, in a showdown played at the old field on Rivers Street.

“We were playing ETSU and they had Atlee Hammaker, who eventually played with the (San Francisco) Giants and played in the All-Star Game,” Morris remembered. “Randy hit two home runs and one went across the road and into the faculty housing down there. He was the kind of guy who got better with the competition.”

A Brave(s) new world

After playing three years at ASU, Ingle was once again eligible for the baseball draft. The Braves selected him and he signed quickly.

Morris knew that Ingle would not be easy to replace, but he had nothing but high hopes for his player.

“Obviously he was a franchise player,” Morris said. “In fact, in his last year he turned an ankle at the beginning of the season and he missed the first 10 games and we went 3-7. Then he came back and we won 10 or 11 in a row. He’s a guy we built the team around and it was a big loss, but this was his future and we wished the best for him.”

“He was very pleased,” Ingle said of Morris. “He knew I was going to get drafted. He was very happy for me, I remember that.”

It didn’t take much to get Ingle to sign.

“I told them I’d sign for a gallon of milk and a box of Reece’s Cups,” he joked. “I just wanted to play.”

He got a bit more than that for signing on the dotted line, but Ingle’s career in professional baseball took more twists and turns than the Blue Ridge Parkway. For starters, though Ingle played shortstop in college, he was moved to third base in the pros.

He moved up the minor-league ladder quickly, reaching Double-A the final month of his first year and hitting .310.

But Ingle never reached the major leagues. A knee injury at the Triple-A level shortly before he was to be called up to the majors allowed Paul Runge to leap-frog over Ingle into the bigs.

Ingle returned to Triple-A in 1986 and Richmond won the International League championship. He was hitting about .415, but another top prospect, shortstop, Jeff Blauser, was called up from Single-A to play for Richmond in the ’86 series, leaving Ingle on the bench.

“Jeff Blauser was one of their top prospects and they wanted to see how he would handle a pressure situation,” Ingle said.

To the coaching box

Ingle, on the recommendation of then-Richmond pitching coach Bill Slack, got into coaching. Since then, he’s coached and managed at every level of minor-league baseball. He guided the Greenville (S.C.) Braves, led by Chipper Jones, Javy Lopez and Ryan Klesko, to a Southern League (Double-A) championship.

He’s managed in Richmond and at Pulaski, Va., in the rookie Appalachian League. He also coached the Single-A Durham Bulls in 1988 when the movie “Bull Durham” hit the theaters.

“I’ve had other opportunities for jobs with other  organizations, but I don’t think there’s a better one than the Atlanta Braves’ organization,” Ingle said. “The people here are first class and are quality people. It’s a first-class organization from top to bottom and they take care of their people.”

Ingle said he would like to break into the Major Leagues as a coach or manager, but is not obsessed with it.

“I would like to just to say that I had made it and more I guess than anything are the benefits that you get,” he said. “The pension plan is outstanding in the major leagues. That would be the main reason, but not the only reason. If not for that, then I love right where I’m at right now.”

The rewards are plentiful for Ingle. First and foremost, he stays involved in the game he loves.

He also takes pride in knowing that he had a hand in being a part of one of professional sport’s most successful organizations. The Braves have reached the National League playoffs for 13 straight seasons with both free agents and with players gaining seasoning on the farm.

“Not only mentally, but physically you watch these guys grow up and we’re dealing with 18- to 24-year-olds for the most part,” Ingle said. “You see some teams with 28-year-olds playing A ball. They should be tearing up and it just shows that (organizations) are trying to win here instead of trying to develop players.”

Several players who were in Myrtle Beach either last year or the year before have made the leap to the majors this year. Outfielder Jeff Francoeur, catcher Brian McCann, outfielder Kelly Johnson and infielders Wilson Betemit and Adam LaRoche are all on the Atlanta Braves’ active roster this season.

“Seeing these guys get there that quick and seeing them have success is my reward,” said Ingle, now in his fourth season at Myrtle Beach. “That’s why I’m here. Some ask why I’m here and that’s why, to coach them and the watch them reach their goal.”

But there are also drawbacks to life in the minor leagues. The bus rides, made famous in “Bull Durham,” are for real. Major League teams may fly to each road trip, but Single-A teams still travel on interstate highways and country roads.

Ingle can take the bus trips. Being away from his family for as long as he has to be is much more difficult. The season begins in February when the coaching staffs of the different teams prepare for spring training and ends at the end of August.

“That’s the worst part about this job,” Ingle said. “It’s pretty much missing your kids grow up and being involved in them playing ball or being at their dance. The way the schedules are in baseball, you play every night. You get very few nights off in the minor leagues. It’s a 140-game schedule during the regular season, but I love it. (Coaching) is something I love doing.”

Ingle said he likes the “high A ball” because he can see the progress of players coming through. Top draft choices occasionally make a stop at Myrtle Beach on their way to the big leagues. Some players from the 2003 draft, including No. 1 pick Jarrod Saltalamacchia, a catcher, play for the Pelicans.

Ingle sees a variety of different players at that level, too. Some are fresh out of high school, or have been out for only a year and are just 18 or 19 year’s old.

Others have been through college and are 22- to-24-years old. All have one goal in mind — to get to the big leagues. Joey Devine, one of Atlanta’s No. 1 picks this year and out of North Carolina State — stopped by Myrtle Beach this year, but is already up to the Double-A Mississippi Braves.

“He didn’t stay long,” Ingle said.

So is former Appalachian State shortstop Wes Timmons, who played at Red Lackey Field in the early 2000s. Timmons, a shortstop/third baseman, is hitting. 298 with Mississippi this season.

Winning vs. development

Ingle said winning is nice in the minor leagues, but his job is not necessarily to capture league championships, but to develop talent for the parent Atlanta Braves. Ingle said he could only speak for the Braves’ organization, saying that the Braves would rather develop players and lose games here and there then to stockpile a minor-league team with players who may not fit into the team’s long-range plan, but who are on the roster so the team can win a championship at the minor league level.

That doesn’t mean that Ingle doesn’t like to win games. Not only did he win a championship with Greenville, he also took another Greenville team to the Southern League championship game only to lose in the finals.

That year, the Braves, led by Andruw Jones, won 104 games during the regular season.

“I know they like to see us win and I also believe that winning is a part of that development,” Ingle said. “I think they go hand-in-hand. But if you had to chose one over the other, it would be developing players over winning.”

Fact vs. myths

Ingle said that not everything from “Bull Durham” was accurate — like drinking beer on the bus — but it did touch on some things that happen when living life in the bus leagues.

He said the long bus rides were accurately portrayed as was the camaraderie between teammates. Ingle also said that although he’s never told any player to breath through his eyelids — as Susan Sarandon’s character Annie Savoy told Tim Robbins’ character Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh to do — minor league players will often try superstitious things to break a slump or to play better.

“You might ask them where they’re eating lunch tomorrow and that they may try eating a steak down here or next door or whatever,” Ingle said. “You just try to get their mind off of it for a second. You’ll have your loyal fans always there, but the drinking on the bus is not allowed. Many years ago, it was.”

He also was a coach with the Bulls when the movie was released. The old Durham Athletic Park, home of the Bulls, suddenly became the place to watch baseball in the Triangle area.

“They used to turn them away at the old DAP,” Ingle said. “There would be camera crews who would come to the games and they would also turn away at least a 1,000 people a game.”

Things went well for Myrtle Beach last weekend as the Pelicans took two out of three from Winston-Salem. Myrtle Beach improved its second-half record to 12-14, leaving them one full game behind the first-place Warthogs in the Carolina League’s Southern Division.

But Ingle remembers his Appalachian State roots and has no regrets playing baseball in Boone.

“I’m glad I didn’t sign with Minnesota and go to the pros,” Ingle said. “Those three years there I can’t replace.”