WDYM What Do You Mean?
WDYM What Do You Mean?
Reliving the Glory: Hamilton vs. Badin Revisited (1980-2023)
Rewind to the epic battles of Ohio's high school football scene as we journey through the intense rivalry between Hamilton and Badin. Ever wondered how a mere merger of Hamilton's Garfield and Taft high schools in the 1980s could set the stage for a historic showdown? Join me, as we uncover the thrilling 1980 game led by Badin's legendary Tony Farquis and the defensive 1981 rematch.
Fast forward to 1999 and 2000, where athletes like Ryan King and David Huff became legends, setting records and dazzling fans. But nothing compares to Tommy Puma's awe-inspiring performance in the 2000 game, which single-handedly secured Badin's victory. The stakes are higher than ever as we anticipate the 2024 game in Fairfield. Could Hamilton finally turn the tide? Tune in to WDYM, and let's relive these unforgettable moments and gear up for the next chapter in this storied rivalry.
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you're listening to the wdym, the what do you mean? Podcast, hamilton's number one podcast. Now sit back and relax. Here's hamilton's own, michael gillespie, and welcome to the WDYN Podcast. I'm your host, michael Gillespie. Hope all is good. Hope all is well with you. Guess what? It is that great time of the year? It is football season Football season in Ohio. So that means high school football is getting ready to start.
Speaker 1:The most purest form of football, in my opinion, is high school football, and it gets no better than Hamilton versus Bain to kick off the 2024 season. So today we're going to go all the way back to the 1980s, talk about every game of the series and lead up to the 2024 game which is being played in fairfield. Yeah, fairfield, we'll touch on that when we uh, get to that. But let's start this off with the 1980s now. Anytime we go back in the time machine, we have to play the time machine music. Let's go back to the time machine. We have to play the time machine music. Let's go back to the 1980s. Yes, the smell of the 1980s is in here. I don't know where I was going with that, but yeah, 1980 starts off with ending the Fairfield versus Bates series. They used to play each other, which was a shocker to me, because you know you would play Fairfield but you wouldn't play Hamilton. That's cool, that's all right.
Speaker 1:Back in the day, before the game let up in the 1970s, hamilton was two schools. I guess there was a boom in population back then. Hamilton then at the time decided to divide up into two schools, one on the East side, garfield, one on the West side, taft. The Garfield Griffins and the Taft Tigers were the two Hamilton schools. Back in the seventies, in 1980, those schools decided to re-merge or re-emerge, become Hamilton again. They decided to play the Baton Rams. Let me give you a little story about the Baton Rams and why this rivalry is a thing. Baton football is all about prestige, and who brought that prestige to Baton is no other than Terry Malone. Terry Malone is one of the greatest coaches in Ohio football history. Let me repeat that. Terry Malone is one of the greatest coaches in Hamilton football history. He's the one that made Baton great. He's the one that put the prestige in Baton and it goes for decades. He was the coach when it was called Hamilton Catholic School. When they transformed into Baton he was still there. But we will touch more about Terry Malone later.
Speaker 1:So the game is so big that it cannot be played in Hamilton At this juncture. Hamilton only has the athletic field in Garfield. At Garfield and that can maybe host maybe 2,000, maybe 3,000 tops back then maybe 3,000 tops back then. The magnitude of this game. The first time Hamilton and Baton played they had to go to Middletown, to Burnett Stadium. Burnett Stadium could hold roughly, I think back in the day, maybe 10,000, 12,000. Maybe. That had to hold the game because it was so big for Hamilton During this juncture, before the game, it was such a buildup, it was even a buildup during the summer. People were pointing at this game. They knew that. You know one, this has never happened before. And two, it's a big thing for Hamilton. Still to this day it's still a big thing for Hamilton.
Speaker 1:So what happened in that 1980 game? It was the Farkas show. Tony Farkas scores three touchdowns in the second half to propel Baton to beat Hamilton 28 to 14 in the inaugural game. And in fact Farkas fumbled on his first play from scrimmage in the third quarter he paved the way for Hamilton's to take the 14 to 7 lead and, and afterwards he pointed to that that really got me mad, farkas said I couldn't stop thinking about it and I wanted to get it back, and he did it three times to Hamilton.
Speaker 1:So the notes in this section is outstanding performance, followed by baiting defense and keep away. Remember that because, according to the box score, hamilton had nine yards passing. Now again, this is the eighties and I don't think they believed in passing period. But yeah, nine yards passing compared to Bain 74. So there you go. So Bain won, hamilton zero.
Speaker 1:Now I always like to like think deeper, put some, put some thought into this. Like why did Hamilton lose his game? Because they have two schools full of talent, right With Garfield and Taft of talent right With Garfield and Taft, and Hamilton at the time had to make a choice for who they wanted to lead the newly formed Hamilton. Do you go with Dale Robinson, with one year of coaching experience and went 5-5 at Taft, or Leonard Rush, who went 11-17 with three years at Garfield? You've all seen the movie. Remember the Titans? This is the same thing that happened. In my opinion, the same thing might have happened, but in reverse, it wasn't successful, even though at the 1980 game, both teams were undefeated at the time, baton went on to win. And that's two things that could happen, like people that were loyal to Coach Rush at Garfield was like no, I ain't playing, I ain't playing for Coach Robertson to tap, I'm a Garfield guy. That could happen. Or two, terry Malone was just that darn good, I don't know. I mean one could lead to the other or the other, one could be factual. So we'll never know and I hate that. The only thing I don't like about this is that I can't find these people to talk to, because that would be interesting to talk to Leo Rush, to talk to Dale Robertson to see their opinion on the game. But ah, can't do that. So let's fast forward to 81.
Speaker 1:The 1981 game. It was a low-scoring defensive game and the final score was 3-0 favor the Baden Rams. Rick Sano, if you may know, he's a local guy who does journalism and has his own sports reporting page and everything. He kicked the lone field goal 27 yards to beat Hamilton 3-0. Game was a great game. Hamilton defense, baten pride, a proud coach, a perplexed coach and aplexed coach and a tinge of melancholy. Written by Galen Dusky from the Hamilton Journal.
Speaker 1:The Hamilton defense was literally on the field the entire first half as bait and march from 20 to 20. The problem was the Rams couldn't score. The reason was the big blue defense. It's the kind of game I expected, said Coach Malone, and while waiting to board a bus back to Hamilton, it's a very, very tough defensive game. Obviously I'm pleased that we won, but I have to give big blue credit for the great defense. To realize the magnitude of effort turned in by the big blue defense, one would need to consider the fact that Hamilton ran nine offensive plays in the first half, nine offensive plays Overall. We had a good defensive effort, malone said as his team rang up its third consecutive shutout, adding Hamilton to the list. That includes Roger Bacon and Fairfield. Rams had Hamilton to two first downs, one by penalty and 21 yards of total offense.
Speaker 1:So you see the formula to beat or to have a moment between the Hamilton-Bayton series, you got to have an individual performance and something lacking. What was lacking in this game was the Hamilton offense. The box score for this. Get this. First downs Baton 15, hamilton 2. Rushing yards 156, hamilton 19. Passing yards Now again, we're in the 80s. People Remember Passing yards. Baton baiting 79, hamilton five. So you see the formula here individual performances followed by a someone shutting somebody down right and the first game, baiting defense. Second game, baiting defense and hold on to the football that, my friends, is Terry Malone football. And the thing is that when this game happens like, I try my best to reach out and just get an internet quote, an internet question. Rick Sano has a Twitter slash X account account and I'm pretty sure he's busy. But I just reached out and said can you tell me about the 81 game Just a little bit, because that is your game, that is your single handed performance that gave Baton a 2-0 lead in the Hamilton versus Baton series. Yeah, he doesn't respond, but that's cool. I don't expect him to, but it would be nice to, hopefully if he would ever reach out.
Speaker 1:20 years later, approximately 1999 to be exact, the series picks up. Now we've had over 20 years of, you know, kids come in and out, things change and we get this coach named Ed Minnery. Ed Minnery has, I had many graduated from Baton. So that's the thing I love about this rival we're intermixed, we are. There's some Baton people that are now Hamilton people, hamilton people that are now Bain people. That's what makes this rivalry beautiful. So in 1999, this young man, me, I'm a student at Hamilton high and we all. We all are energized about the Hamilton Bain game. You know, this has not happened in our lifetime and we get to witness this. And I was close friends to a lot of football players and that year we were okay. So I'm not saying we were bad, but we weren't terrible.
Speaker 1:I would argue that the GMC is the best football conference in Ohio. See, the thing about the GMC is that it's dominated by great teams, the Princetons of the 80s and 90s, the Colerains of the 2000s. And then we have those in-between years where we have, like you know, hamilton winning a couple of GMC championships, lakota winning a championship and, to top it off, lakota divided itself to East and West, lakota East and Lakota West. Competition is the thing for the GMC. We used to play two out-of-conference games. Now we're down to one. We get one out-of-conference game and you jump into GMC and I'm telling you hands down, the toughest conference in Ohio. Look it up, look it up, look it up Back to 1999.
Speaker 1:We are talking about the game Hamilton is. I think they're 3-6. I think Baton is like 7-2, getting ready to go to, or 7-2, getting ready to go to the playoffs, and the hype is all too real. First and foremost. Now Hamilton has their own football stadium at the school. Virgil Swarm is built there. Ok, so we have that going for us. We have a stadium right outside the school. The stadium could fit, I think, roughly seven, seven thousand, maybe eight thousand Don't quote me on that. So the hype is there. The Journal News is publishing articles every day leading up to this series because again we have the 80s to talk about. We have this inner-city rivalry that's not been touched in 20-plus years. Getting ready to go down the city is hyped.
Speaker 1:The thing that I'm talking to the football players hey man, what are we doing? Are we going to win this game? Are we going to win this game or not? I'm asking everybody, I'm asking all the football players hey man, hey, hey man, we're gonna be baiting. They'll be like yeah, man, I'm asking kevin, william, kevin, we gonna, we gonna, we're gonna be baiting man, they smalling us man, we, we gonna beat them. I said okay, but we, we three and six man, that's a you three and six man. So what'd you say? I said nothing, man. I said nothing. I'm asking my friend mo, man, we win, we win Like man, we better win. You know what I'm saying. I'm like okay. So I'm asking, I'm asking Huff David, huff, like Huff man, we going to win? He's the most relaxed cat I've ever seen. He's just sleepy, relaxed. Yeah, man, come on man. What do you think we going to lose? No, I'm just asking because you on the field, come on, man, we playing the GMC bro, we going to win? I said we going to win. He said yes, we going to win. What happened? What happened? Bane scores first. And that is right about it.
Speaker 1:It was the Ryan King, davidid huff show. What do I mean by that? What I mean is that ryan king ran everywhere he wanted to go. He ran for 227 yards. That at the time, was a single game record 271 all-purpose yards add two touchdowns. So I was like Ryan King, what'd you do? That's what he did. He did that. And on top of that, huff, remember the all chilly, chill, relaxed, chillin' type Huff. I said Huff, what'd you do after the game? He did that Relaxed, chilling type Huff. I said Huff, what did you do after the game? He did Wap, wap, wap, wap, wap, wap, wap, wap, wap, wap. I'm going to do my stuff. He did his stuff.
Speaker 1:He scored by run reception, interception for touchdowns to lead Hamilton to a 45-13 victory, the biggest margin of victory in the series, to put Hamilton on the board 2-1. Now that's the formula for Hamilton. The formula is either good defense or superstar performances. Let's look back Tony Farkas three touchdowns. Rick Cassano only field goal. This game had two superstars Ryan King 271 all day. Huff three touchdowns all day. So the formula is in.
Speaker 1:The formula is in on how to be baiting in the 90s it's athleticism, right, 45-13 says athleticism. And in the 2000, the next year, because this is a two-year thing, it should be the same thing. I know these people, man, I see them all the time the jermaine wells, the derrick wilkerson's, the taz morris I told you about taz morris, like, hit people so hard, hit them two weeks in the future. It's loaded. This is a loaded squad and next year is going to be the same right. So this should be second, uh, second verse, same as the first. There's no way we're losing 2000 game. The formula is right there. This is athleticism and individual performances. That cap. That that makes a hamilton victory plain and simple. And it's just for me. Me it's jubilation because Hamilton won. So we're all playing the theme song, we're ready for 2000. Let's go Right, but towards the end of that game, there's this one guy, one guy, I don't even want to mention his name.
Speaker 1:This is Tommy Puma. Tom Puma Throws this little rinky-dink touchdown at the end to give Baton another touchdown 45-13. Tom Puma, tommy Puma, whatever you want to call him. He saw that. He saw the 1990 game and said, hey, hold my burr. He said hold my burr, we got 2,000 to play. I go to the 2,000 game expecting the same. This is going to be cake. It's going to be easy. This is the same formula. We got all the athleticism. They don't have the athleticism to beat Hamilton. They don't, they don't, they don't. Okay, there's just no way.
Speaker 1:And both teams struggled that year. They weren't top-tier teams. This wasn't the same Terry Malone team. So again, leading up to the game, it's the same thing. We know. We say, hey, man, is Hamilton going to win? There's no doubt. There's no doubt in my mind that this is going to happen.
Speaker 1:Remember that guy I mentioned, tom Puma. Tommy Puma, you know, he said hold my bird. He was not playing so before. So I was like you know what? Let me reach out to TV Hamilton. You know what? Let me reach out to TV Hamilton. Tv Hamilton has been advertising showing clips on Facebook of the game. I was like, wow, they got clips of the game. Let me reach out to them. Let me reach out to them and say, hey, let me get that 2000 game on DVD. They said no problem, so I got it. I got it. So I go to the game and I, I watch the game and bait and wins the game. Six I believe it was 16 to 10 at roger swarm stadium bait and won the game.
Speaker 1:Watching the game on dvd, I realized bait and 12 is tom puma. Tom puma scores every point for bait. He did it all. I'm not playing when I say that, when I say Tommy Puma did everything. He did everything Kicking field goal, extra point touchdown. Tommy Puma I think his name is Tommy B Puma. The B stands for Baton, because he did it all for Baton, he did it all.
Speaker 1:Now again, as a person who loves this game, who loves this rivalry, I I read about tony farka scoring three touchdowns, but he didn't do it alone. I read about rick casano's field goal he did it alone. David huff, ryan king combination, put the whooping on bait. This performance by tommy puma has and including the game, the last, the last, the 1999 game where he threw a touchdown, this performance by tommy puma arguably one of the best performances in hamilton versus bait in history. I'm serious about that. I I would love to talk to Tommy Puma First, give him a mean look, because that was not cool. At the same time, give this man his flowers he put. I want to know how he felt after this game. He did everything.
Speaker 1:Now, watching the game, yes, he did 90% of the work, but there was two other people that deserve applause. Okay, so while, yes, yes, tommy Puma did a lot, a lot of credit goes to Drew Teekin and Andy Furman. Those two also helped a lot with the running game and everything. And despite Big Blue's athleticism and a big shout-out goes to Derek Wilkerson. He had a run that set it off, man, I think he had 135 yards that game. And the thing that I question, looking back at the game, is why did we quit feeding Derrick? Like dude, he was the thing about Derrick Derrick's. Like my height, maybe a couple inches taller than me, the man could run, and it's like once we did that, we got away from it.
Speaker 1:Now, granted, the defense of Baton was good that game, it was great that game. But now, in hindsight, I can watch the game again. Some of the play calling was questionable and and hold on, I got a mystery for you the quarterback from Hamilton was from Baton. Was he sent there to purposely lose the game? Maybe we'll never know, but either way, that was the cap of the series for another 20 years, fast forward to 2023. You don't know what to think right now because, again, we've had 20 years of up and down football for Hamilton. We've had bad coaches after bad coaches after bad coaches, and then we finally get some good coaches in, like Nate Mahon. He was our coach, hamilton grad Coach Crouch Now he was here before as an assistant coach. It's like, okay, the momentum slowly, you know, going back, getting back to a better standard of Hamilton football, and Bain is still doing its thing. Despite Coach Malone retiring, the program is still at an all-time high, which leads us to the 2023 game.
Speaker 1:Now, before I even dive into 2023 game, let you know I don't talk about kids. Okay, I don't, I don't, I don't talk about kids. The kids will be nameless and stuff. I'm not going to talk about, no kids, it's not fair, it's not right. They, they, just the kids.
Speaker 1:But leading up to the game, we, as hamiltonians, come together to celebrate. We had this whole prep rally at markham park and this is the first time I get to openly boo people in green and I'm doing it. I don't care, I don't care if I'm older or not. I see somebody in green, I'm booing a boo, boo. You stink boo. Go back, go back to wherever you came from, and the thing is that nobody's like angry about it. We're all laughing and see the person that born us crossing the street. They're laughing and all that stuff. There is colors of blue, of green, of people from Baton, people from Hamilton, people of Hamilton are all together and we're all at Markham Park celebrating this rivalry. That's bringing us all together. So it's a good time to see all these people celebrating Hamilton and that's what I love about this rivalry the series that we are celebrating Hamilton. Our kids are our people of Hamilton. We're all together enjoying ourselves. Right, and I get to boo people in public. That's great.
Speaker 1:Leading up to the game. So we're at virgil swarm stadium. It's weird. The feeling is weird. Now again, I have been to the 1999 game as a student, the 2000 game as a, as a spectator what everyone call it and a 2023 game as a spectator and again, I don't have no insight. I don't have, you know, nothing but the feeling that I got from watching the game that it was just another game to the Hamilton players. I don't know, it just looked that way, it just came off that way.
Speaker 1:Needless to say that this game was played the first game of the season. How can you tell who you are in the first game of the season? These games previously were played in the 80s, in the middle of the season, and the 90s, the last game of the season. At the last game of the season, you know who you are. I need to run it with king. I need to give it to huff. Uh, I need chris brunt to throw a touchdown pass. That's who we are. That is hamilton football. Malone did the same thing. We need to run the ball. You need to give it to Tom Puma. He will take care of the rest.
Speaker 1:This game. It's the only thing I don't like about this game. It should never be played the first week of the season, never. We don't know who we are, they don't know who we are. So, basically, it's all about how prepared you are and how prepared you are, and I don't think Hamilton was prepared and it showed because again, individual performances show.
Speaker 1:As quarterback who's now left I think his name was Alex Ritzy performed amazingly being a great ball manager as quarterback bait and beat Hamilton 18-0 at the Swarm. But that game was Hamilton's worst game of the year, worst game of the year. After that they beat Lakota East 21-0. Mason 0 kills and if it wasn't for the quarterback getting hurt at Princeton and a bad pass interference call, probably would have beat Princeton. We're talking GMC, possibly getting a GMC championship where we haven't had one since 1997. And on top of that, we made the playoffs, got our first playoff win in the modern day history. Let me say that modern day history. Let me say that Modern day history. And then we lose to Princeton again Eight and four. You can't tell me that's not a successful season. You can't tell me that if that was played in the middle or end of the season that outcome might have been different, don't know. But nevertheless, success for the hamilton big blue football, success for baiting football too. They went on to go to the playoffs as well, but that is a regular for baiting.
Speaker 1:So what I did, I did something to honor this, this tradition right. This, to me, is the greatest thing for hamilton when we get together and play this game. So I decided to make coins, bring this rivalry to a physical form. I made coins all the way up to the. I call them the 2024 coins, which basically each side of the coin has one side hamilton, one side baiton, and it lists the years that they won their respective game, which leads me to the 2024 game Again.
Speaker 1:That game, the 2023 game was possibly their worst game of the year. Hands down, it was their worst game of the year and there was flashes of great play, great players on that Hamilton team. They got to play the 2024 game at Fairfield. Now playing at another team stadium that's nothing new to the series, right? We've done that in the 80s, playing in Middletown, and we're playing the 2024 in Fairfield, and I would love to keep this in Hamilton because this is our thing. We don't need to be going to Fairfield to play Hamilton Bain. This is our game. If Bain wants to be on the home side, we should let him. We should let him Cause. This is this is. This is our game, this is. This is how I feel. This is our game and it should be played on our field, on our land. It just makes sense to me. So what does the 2024 game hold? What, what, how is that going to end With the 18? And nothing loss in the mind.
Speaker 1:I seen, I follow, I follow coach, I follow Hamilton and I follow the report. And the report is one of my friends, chris. He just covers high school everything. Everything shout outs to Chris. For that.
Speaker 1:It seems like them boys are thirsty man. I've never I've seen you know, I'm watching them on the X Twitter, twitter XX, whatever, twitter X. I watch them and again, I don't know. They're young men. I don't want to talk about young men, but they seem thirsty from the clips I've seen. I've seen thirsty. I've seen thirsty. I've seen Coach Crouch. He's not like taking an interview at the desk, he's in there watching them drinking water, like, yeah, we thirsty. And I believe that I believe that Hamilton is thirsty this year for something great. Okay.
Speaker 1:So what does that say for the game in 2024? I'm going to say watch out now. I'm going to say this. This is what I'm going to say I think Hamilton's going to kill him. Just a feeling. I just got a feeling that they know, I've seen too much on the Twitter and everything that Hamilton's going to do their thing. Just my opinion. I guess I'll have to do a podcast on that and see exactly to do their thing. Just my opinion. I guess I'll have to do a podcast on that and see exactly how the game went.
Speaker 1:But that's the series, man. It is right now 4-1. 4-1? That's not cool. You can't go down 5-1 against your rival that you only played 20 years. I'm going to be dead by the time they even the series. We got to win this one. I love talking about this. I can talk about this all day, but that's it. Thank you for listening to WDYM. Thank you for listening to my Hamilton vs Baton 2023 edition. I guess I'm going to do the 2024 edition after the game. My name is Michael Espy. I'll talk to you guys later. Peace out.
