The momentum is building

Rod Peterson faithfully serves a two-headed master - one that he has served for much of his life: his corn and soybean farm and his Farm Tavern men’s fastpitch softball team, making Peterson a double-duty farmer.

He spends 14-hour days during Spring and Summer, in backbreaking labor, planting and cultivating his crops on his 650-acre farm near Madison, Wisconsin.

Like all farmers, the 60-year-old Peterson frets about weather. In one breath he curses unrelenting rain; in the next he prays it will come to quench his thirsty crops. Farmers worry - Peterson’s a farmer.

But when he steps off his John Deere tractor at the end of the day, his crop worries stop; he begins his second farming operation, managing his Farm Tavern men’s fastpitch softball team – one fraught with duties and worries similar to his farming operation.

"With farming you never know what’s going to happen, like with the weather," said Peterson. "How hot a summer, how much rain you’ll get, and will it come at the right time.

"Managing a softball team is similar. You never know how good your hitting is going to be and if the hits will come at the right time," said Peterson. "I enjoy calling plays and putting the right pitcher on the mound at the right time. If it works it’s a great feeling and if it doesn’t, the feeling is just as bad the other way."

Born and raised on a farm, Peterson says, "farming is in my blood." He also got fastpitch in his blood in 1957 when he began playing in the Madison, Wisc. city leagues. He launched his Farm Tavern team in 1965 and for 34 years they’ve traveled the U.S. and Canada playing the best competition the sport has to offer.

Rod Peterson and the Farm Tavern signify fastptich softball at its very best. Their fabric is so interwoven that they’ve become synonymous: "Peterson and The Farm", "The Farm and Peterson". A devotion rarely seen in fastpitch softball between a man and his team – they have become one.

And because of this devotion, Peterson was inducted into the ISC Hall of Fame in 1994 - one of just four managers so honored in its 53 years. An honor he cherishes as being the "pinnacle of this sport".

Broad-shouldered with a fullback’s build, and a booming voice to match, Peterson’s had big triumphs over the years, but a few disappointments too.

For many years, The Farm bore the label: "good pitching, not enough hitting". They would come oh-so-close in ISC World Tournament play, (top four finishes in 1982, 1987, 1996) but lose hard-luck, well pitched games from lack of RBI’s, denying Peterson the world title he craved.

Realizing that he needed a few more sluggers, Peterson went shopping. "As far as getting a better hitting team, when we picked up Tim Wahl, Brian Martie, Steve King, Tim Hildebrandt and Colin Abbott, they are as good as there is in the game," said Peterson. "We also have six Wisconsin players who have come into their own and are real good players too."

With his high-yielding hitters in place, Peterson and The Farm won its first World Tournament championship at Victoria, BC in 1997, clubbing the Victoria Legends 11-2 in the championship game along with an earlier 9-1 hammering of the Tampa Bay Smokers.

And no one begrudged Peterson his title. Many felt a sense of relief that a good man and his good team finally won it all. "Well deserved", and "couldn’t happen to better man", were some of the sentiments uttered his way. "Winning the championship for the first time was awfully exciting," he said. "Everything went just perfect for us."

Many predicted a repeat in 1998, but Pete Porcelli’s Tampa Bay Smokers derailed The Farm twice (4-1, 4-2) to claim the title. Their battles have been memorable over the years. Porcelli, who since merged his Smokers with the Heflin Builders, says Peterson is one smart manager – an icon other managers are measured by.

He says Peterson will do anything to win, from the home plate conference, coin flip, to "jockeying to intimidate umpires", he’s all business.

"I’ve faced Rod four times in the World Tournament," said Porcelli. "Rod’s an offensive minded coach…right in your face. His favorite play is the double steal with runners on first and second. He pulls it off four out of five times, way above the odds. He’s simply not afraid to run out of an inning. His clobbering line-up of lumber gives him so many big innings that he knows he’s not going to throw a game over it.

"Rod is quiet except to shake up his troops when they get complacent, then that bellowing voice comes out of nowhere," says Porcelli, "and his team starts chattering immediately."

"He studies umpires. When they make good calls, he gives them the thumbs up," said Porcelli. "When they screw up, he bellows ‘WHATTA YOU LOOKING AT???!!!’. (When the game starts) forget about him being nervous or making any fundamental mistakes. Rod will be at the top of his game and there will be no freebies."

But off the field, Peterson sheds his tough persona and is a "gentleman in victory as well as defeat," said Porcelli. "He’s a great coach to his team after the final out – win or lose. I measure a coach’s ability by how he handles defeat as well as victory. Rod always uses this slogan with his players: ‘Guys, you gotta have amnesia in this game, some times you just need that dose of amnesia. It can be the best thing for ya!’"

After 41 years how much longer will his love affair continue with fastpitch softball? "I lose a little every year," says Peterson. "It all depends on my health." But with the team he’s assembled, why quit now?

Currently the top-ranked team in the world; the Farm Tavern is considered a favorite to win the World Tournament title in Sioux City, Iowa (August 13-22).

"I agree," says Porcelli. "They should be the top-rated team. Their pitching is extremely deep with the addition of Todd Martin with Paul Algar and Jody Hennigar."

Martin, the former Tampa Bay Smoker who captured the World Tournament’s Most Valuable Pitcher award last season, was floating free when the Smokers disbanded. And when Peterson called, Martin didn’t hesitate.

"I was very comfortable with the thought of playing for Rod," said Martin. "In dealing with Rod there isn’t a lot of bells and whistles. He’s a straight shooter that knows what he wants, what he likes, and he sticks to that way of life. He treats everyone as an equal and with respect."

But a word of warning: If you want play for Peterson, check the "I" word at the gate. "I look for a player with a good head on his shoulders," said Peterson. "He has to fit, get along with everybody and his personality has to be compatible with mine. When they are told to bunt, hit and run, or anything else, they have to do it without crying about it.

"Give me a player who is intelligent with a good attitude and to me he is a better than a player who has all the talent, but a poor attitude, like an "I" person."

Great pitching coupled with great hitting…can they be beaten? "They will flat out-hit any lineup on any team in the world," says Porcelli. "Their meat of the batting order may rank as some of the greatest ever.

"The fact that they don’t have a trainer and they don’t have a large roster both work against them if they get injured…you almost have to see them hurt to beat them."

"A left-handed thrower will present more of a challenge to them than a righty. If there is a weakness, it is defensively," said Porcelli. "Their infield is good, with vets John Heubner, Tim Hildebrand, Boyd Dahlman and Brian Martie. But with the exception of Dahlman, who is a very solid shortstop, these are primarily offensive players…but have played over 200 games together over the past three years."

Good on paper and good bleacher talk, but just like ominous thunder clouds that can lay waste to his crops, Peterson is wary of those who can shatter his World Tournament plans as well. "Salt Lake City (Larry H. Miller Toyota) scares me," said Peterson. "They have good pitching and real good position players.

"There is also Victoria (Legends), Broken Bow (Travelers), Heflin Smokers…and the team to beat is Decatur (Pride), they are real good this year." And Peterson points north: "There are some real good teams in Canada…and don’t forget Mr. Zack (pitcher Darren Zack of the Oshawa Gators)."

But Peterson certainly doesn’t discount his Farmers. He craves a second World Tournament title – one that may have slipped away last year; one that he desperately wanted to win at home – in Kimberly, Wisconsin.

"We strive to win the World Tournament every year," said Peterson. "We won it in 1997 and if it wasn’t for illegal pitches called in the fifth inning when we were leading 2-1 in the championship game last year, it would have been very interesting.

"That was the only time that a pitcher (Paul Algar) was called for illegal pitches the whole tournament, and it was by a Wisconsin umpire," said Peterson. "I don’t think an umpire should work the game when a team from the same state is playing, but I can’t get the powers-to-be to move on this, like everything else."

As the newcomer, Martin says the Farm’s horsepower was one of the reasons he signed on. "The Smokers and Farm had some great games and heated battles," said Martin. "Throwing against them, the power they had, you never had a break in their lineup – they just kept coming at you.

"I think the simplest way to explain why this team is so good," adds Martin, "is the talent - loads and loads of talent. The big name players are one thing, but the non-household name players crush the ball as well." But the twice-named World Tournament MV pitcher doesn’t take anything for granted.

"I feel we have a great team," said Martin. "And I think we match up pretty good with the rest of the field, but if history repeats itself, it will be a dogfight – anything can happen in the ISC’s."

Playing the best competition in the world, The Farm Tavern has amassed a 110-29 record over the past two years. Career record? "I don’t have any idea," said Peterson. But surely the numbers would be staggering. In ISC World Tournament and ASA Major national tournament play, along with their one World Tournament title, they’ve finished second twice, third six times, and fourth seven times. But the farmer wants more.

With an eye toward the Fall harvest, Peterson is striving for bumper crops, "180 bushels of corn and 45 bushels of soybeans per acre," he says hopefully. And if his Farmers can also harvest the ISC World Tournament championship, it would give the double-duty farmer a bountiful year.