Kansas Baseball Hall inducting Joe Slobko, Garden City program’s foundation

Around the time Gene Stephenson was building a baseball powerhouse from scratch at Wichita State, a similar transformation was happening 220 miles to the west.

Joe Slobko didn’t start with literally nothing like Stephenson, but it seemed just as unlikely in 1976 – two years before Stephenson helped restart WSU’s program – that Garden City Community College could become a perennial winner.

Because to win a lot, you have to play a lot of games.

“They had no fall ball and had played nine games in the spring,” said Slobko, who coached at Garden City from 1976-97.

Slobko, 80, retired from coaching with an 820-340 record at Garden City, and his 1986 team won a Jayhawk Conference-record 60 games. He’ll be inducted into the Kansas Baseball Hall of Fame during a Saturday ceremony at Distillery 244 in Old Town.

The other inductees are Johnny Damon, Kevin Hooper, Adam LaRoche, Ray Mueller, Bob Rives and Steve Ruud.

It took some luck and the right connections, but Slobko made Garden City a winner quickly. A vast upgrade in facilities followed, and suddenly Slobko had a sustainable program that frequently produced major-league draft picks, including two first-rounders.

“I’m not looking back at it, I’m looking at it as it is,” Slobko said. “I think the thing that I like the most is the success that my former players have had in life. We have a lot who went into coaching.

“I had one kid who came here who was drafted out of high school. And one year I had my catcher, first baseman, third baseman, left and right fielder all drafted.”

When Slobko arrived as a 40-year-old in 1976, Garden City played on a field that was only suitable because it was shaped like a diamond. The outfield wall was a picket fence that ran into the practice football fields.

Slobko made nominal upgrades until he recruited a player from Indiana whose father, unbeknownst to Slobko, was a millionaire.

“In fact, one of the questions I asked him was, ‘Will he qualify for financial aid?’ ” Slobko said.

Slobko became friends with the father, Gary Williams, and soon Garden City had a state-of-the-art complex, Williams Field, along with an indoor facility that housed batting cages and pitching mounds.

“The football team wasn’t real happy with me because they had to move across the road,” Slobko said. “We built Williams Stadium and I designed it, and we stole from major-league parks that I liked. I’ve got Kansas City’s center field and gaps, I’ve got Yankee Stadium’s right field.”

Slobko’s humble beginnings weren’t limited to his profession. He grew up in the mountains of Colorado and said he wouldn’t have gotten through high school without sports.

At 25, he was working on an oil rig and his job was moving to Wyoming. He decided not to go, and to instead become a coach.

“I thought, ‘Is this what you want to do the rest of your life?’ ” Slobko said. “And of course, the answer was hell no. Most of those guys are missing toes and fingers. It wasn’t for me. I got my first coaching job the next year, and I haven’t worked a day since I was 25.”

Garden City had 14 players drafted during Slobko’s tenure – six in 1981 – including first-rounders Roger Lee (1981) and Mark Benhy (1984).

His most well-known player wasn’t drafted. Dayton Moore, the Royals’ general manager, played at Garden City in 1986 and ’87. Moore has often mentioned Slobko’s influence on him, including when Moore was inducted into the Kansas Baseball Hall last year.

“He was good in the classroom, very coachable and intelligent,” Slobko said. “The guy was unbelievable. You do something with his hitting, change something with it, and the next day he’d come in and he could perform it just perfectly. Always had his head in the game.”

This story was originally published January 26, 2017 at 3:34 PM with the headline "Kansas Baseball Hall inducting Joe Slobko, Garden City program’s foundation."