By BOB SHRALUKA
WZBD.com
For a unique experience, leave the Decatur and Berne area and drive southeast across the state line. Go through Willshire and Rockford, then, just north of Celina, pick up SR 127.
Continue south for an hour and a half of so, near villages like Cranberry Prairie and Cassella, Osgood and Burkettsville – tiny towns like Houston (residents pronounce it “House-ton”) and Russia (residents pronounce it “Roosh-uh”).
Just north of Rossburg, home of the Eldora Speedway, you’ll enter the village of North Star, home to approximately 225 souls. With a bit of luck you might find one of those 225, the manager of the San Diego Padres, shoveling snow at his home.
“North Star,” Kevin Acee wrote in the Dec. 12 edition of the San Diego Union Tribune, “is the place where Craig Stammen, the new manager of the Padres, was raised and returned to and never seriously considered leaving.”
Stammen will be departing soon for spring training. Until then, he will be content to remain in the North Star home, situated just off 127, where he and his wife, Audrey, and their four kids reside.
SURPRISE: The Padres decision to hire Stammen was a bit of a shocker – to the world outside the organization.
Inside the club, there was strong support for the move which was announced early last November. He was given a three-year contract.
Stammen “hung it up” two years ago after 13 years as an MLB pitcher, the last few as a reliever. The decision was prompted by a right shoulder injury. The organization, however, was quick to keep Stammen aboard, naming him to a front-office post. He quickly developed a strong relationship with both the players and management.
Hal McCoy, a former Dayton Daily News sportswriter who covered the Cincinnati Reds for years, recently wrote of Stammen: “…(he) is a God-fearing Christian, (who) most likely knows the Bible passage from Isaiah 6:8, ‘Whom shall I send.’ San Diego Padres President of Baseball Operations/General Manager A.J. Preller may not be familiar with the Bible passage, but he knew who he wanted to send into the Padres dugout as field manager.”
According to McCoy, the 41-year-old Stammen was originally on the Padres committee to interview prospects to manage the team, but Preller insisted that Stammen enter his name on the list.
VERSAILLES TO UD: Stammen posted a 55-44 record with a 3.66 ERA in his 13 MLB seasons.
He first began playing baseball in North Star’s Little League. After graduation from nearby Versailles High School, he moved on to the University of Dayton, where he made some 60 pitching appearances in three seasons.
He was drafted by Washington in the 12th round of the 2005 draft.
Stammen made it to the top with the Nationals in 2009, joining the starting rotation. After some ups and some downs, along with some surgeries, he was non-tendered by the Nats in December of 2015.
He signed with Cleveland the following February, pitched in the minors. and on Nov. 7 of that year (2016) Stammen elected free agency. In December, he signed a minor-league deal with the Padres.
In early 2017, Stammen joined the Padres as a relief pitcher.
NORTH STAR STAMMENS: In the Nov. 10 news conference where he was introduced, Stammen spoke about family and how it would characterize the Padres under his watch.
Acee wrote: “He says, as if it is a joke, that half of North Star’s population is made up of his cousins. But it isn’t a joke.”
He is the oldest of three siblings and somewhere in the middle of a hundred or more cousins, many of whom he still sees.
“’My first cousins are like brothers and sisters,” Stammen said. “You have this family, like a bigger family.’”
Audrey has been helping coach volleyball at nearby Versailles High. Craig has helped, when time is available, to coach the school’s baseball team, plus North Star’s 7-under baseball bunch.
Audrey has coached women’s volleyball at the University of Maryland and the University of Dayton.
Acee’s story notes that Stammen has given money and helped raise even more for the Versailles High School baseball team and athletic department over the years.
The Stammens are frequently around the Versailles school, which houses kindergarten through 12th grade. The Saturday after he was introduced as Padres manager, Stammen was at a fundraiser for the athletic department.
When he was still pitching for the Nationals, Stammen said: “Washington, D.C. is definitely different than North Star, Ohio. I have gotten to see places of the country and world that I never thought I would.”
“I was expecting the city life to be a lot tougher because there just wasn’t a lot of space. I have grown to love Washington, D.C., but don’t get me wrong, at the end of the season I get back to Ohio to enjoy a slower pace of life,” he said.
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