Editor’s note: The cover for this story is an original modern Dials Journal illustration. It is not a historical photograph or a reconstruction of a documented scene.
In baseball, a town can spend six innings learning how long a game can feel—and one inning discovering how quickly everything can change.
That was Wabash in 1986. The Apaches had reached Indiana’s state championship game as an unranked team. Across the diamond stood Marion, a program only two seasons removed from a state title of its own. Wabash had a pitcher keeping the game within reach, a coach who taught history for a living, and three outs left to turn a close game into the kind of story people would still tell four decades later.
The history teacher in the dugout
Chris Rood was more than the name beside “winning coach” in the record book. According to the Community Foundation of Wabash County, Rood taught United States history at Wabash High School and led its baseball program from 1971 through 1994.
His 1986 club was not supposed to be the obvious champion. The foundation describes it plainly: an unranked team that went on to win the state championship. The official IHSAA champions record supplies the hard edges of the achievement—Wabash finished 31–6, defeated Marion 2–1, and brought home the state title under Rood.
Those numbers are tidy now. The game itself was not.
Twelve strikeouts and no room to breathe
Tom Dempsey gave Wabash the one thing every late comeback requires: time. A retrospective by Indiana baseball writer Steve Krah records that Dempsey struck out 12 Marion batters in the championship game. Every out kept the door from closing. Every inning sent Wabash back to the dugout with another chance to solve a one-run problem.
There is a particular tension to a 2–1 baseball game. Nothing looks dramatic until suddenly everything is. A routine ground ball can feel like a verdict. A runner at first can change the shape of the whole field. One clean swing can turn six quiet innings into an unforgettable seventh.
Wabash entered its final turn at bat still searching for a run. Then the names began to connect.
Two runs in the seventh
Keith Shepherd reached and became the tying run. Jeff Wagner drove him home. The score was level, but Wabash was not finished.
Coach Rood sent sophomore Jack Holley Jr. in as a pinch-runner. Brent Johnson followed with the game-winning double, and Holley crossed the plate with the run that put Wabash ahead 2–1. The sequence—Shepherd, Wagner, Holley, Johnson—is preserved in Krah’s account of the 1986 team.
Baseball makes room for unlikely heroes because its most important moments are not always reserved for the biggest names. One player reaches. Another delivers. A sophomore is asked to run. Someone finds the gap. The scoreboard changes, but the victory belongs to the chain.
Dempsey and the defense still had to protect that one-run lead. When they did, the official line became permanent: Wabash 2, Marion 1.
The players who carried the story forward
For some members of that team, the championship was not the end of their baseball story.
Shepherd was selected by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 11th round of the 1986 draft directly out of Wabash High School. His major-league record shows that the Wabash native later pitched for the Philadelphia Phillies, Colorado Rockies, Boston Red Sox, and Baltimore Orioles.
Holley eventually returned to the program. He joined the Wabash baseball staff in the early 2000s and became head coach in 2015, carrying forward the kind of instruction he had received from Rood. In Krah’s profile, Holley remembers his former coach as someone whose lessons extended beyond the diamond.
Rood’s influence also survives in a more formal way. After his sudden death, a memorial scholarship was established for Wabash High School varsity baseball players. A championship that began with a coach and a team now helps another generation move forward.
Why Wabash still remembers
A state title is a trophy, but it is also a shared vocabulary. People remember where they listened, who called afterward, which names were in the lineup, and how the town felt when the final out arrived. The score becomes shorthand for a larger idea: we were there, or our parents were there, or someone we know helped make it happen.
That is why local sports history belongs beside the stories of factories, theaters, libraries, railroads, and electric lights. Games create civic memory too. They gather a town into the same suspense, then give it a story that can be passed down without losing its shape.
At Dials Coffee Company, we believe the most meaningful hometown stories are built from recognizable names, patient work, and moments when individual effort becomes something a community can claim together. The 1986 Apaches gave Wabash exactly that kind of story—six innings of pressure, two runs in the seventh, and a final score that still fits perfectly on the scoreboard.
Explore more people, places, and turning points in the Dials Local History Series.
Sources and further reading: IHSAA State Champions record; Community Foundation of Wabash County; IndianaRBI profile of Jack Holley and the Wabash program; Baseball-Reference record for Keith Shepherd.