Petro still wants to bring new life to Pottstown
Chris Petro was looking forward to baseball season this year.
Petro was recently named as head coach of both the Pottstown High varsity and Pottstown Steelers American Legion baseball teams. He replaced Geoff Thomas, who led the high school Trojans for two years, and Todd Endy, who logged 15 years as the Legion Steelers’ manager.
But the recent coronavirus outbreak put the 2020 high-school baseball season in limbo, initially through April. That became a complete cancellation last Thursday when Pa. Governor Tom Wolf announced all Pennsylvania school districts are being kept closed for the remainder of the 2019-20 academic year.
So Petro’s hopes for returning to the home dugout at Shantz Field and leading Pottstown to an improvement over last year’s 3-13 record in the Pioneer Athletic Conference (3-15 overall) were put on hiatus along with the season.
“I just wanted to do whatever I could to give those six young men (seniors) the spotlight they deserve,” Petro said. “I truly believe they, along with the rest of the young talented underclassmen we have, would have helped get us back on the right track as far as bringing quality baseball back to Pottstown.
“I believe we are still primed to do that next year.”
The prognosis for Pottstown’s 2020 Legion baseball season has its own measure of uncertainty. In conjunction with the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bux-Mont
League assumed a “wait and see” posture with president Doug Brown advising teams to follow the stay-athome mandate and not conduct any organized practices or meetings. On Monday, the American Legion Department of Pennsylvania announced Legion baseball, along with the youth leadership programs it runs in the summer, were canceled for 2020.
Along with all these developments, the Steelers’ hopes for bringing baseball back to the community look bleak. Despite the recruiting efforts of Petro and another new coach in the program, current Pottsgrove High manager Jamie Nash, the number of players committing to play Legion ball is very low.
“It is not looking good for us having enough to have a team this summer, even if there is a modified season,” Petro noted. “I was just notified that another player, who had previously said he was going to play for us, is now playing elsewhere. The last I heard from Carl (Sundstrom), he didn’t have many who responded and said they were coming out for the Baby Steelers Junior Legion, either.
“I had both Jamie Nash and one of his players on the high school team, who said he was going to play for us, asking the Pottsgrove baseball players, but I’ve heard nothing back. I told Doug Brown that I would let him know our plans by the end of April.
“Sad state of affairs for everyone, including Legion baseball in Pottstown.”
The Steelers are coming off a troubling 2019 season that saw them go 0-16 and finish last in the Bux-Mont League. While this is his first opportunity as a varsity head coach at the high-school level, Petro has over 22 years of coaching experience under his belt ... both scholastically and at the Legion level. After playing American Legion baseball for the Steelers — that included being a member of their 1995 Bux-Mont League championship team — Chris was invited to stay on as an assistant coach by then-manager Jim Goodhart. He served as a Goodhart assistant for another year with the Steelers, then made the jump to AAU ball as coaches of the Pottstown Spartans under the umbrella of the Pottstown Police Athletic League in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Along with having his dad in the dugout as one of his assistant coaches, Petro put together an experienced staff that includes Brett Huston and Jimai Springfield at the varsity level; and Dave Mabry, Gary Allan and Jamie Franey at the eighth-grade level. Huston, a Phoenixville High graduate, previously served as a varsity assistant at Norristown High. Springfield, a graduate of Chester High and Hall of Fame athlete there, previously served as the head varsity baseball coach at Chester Upland High. Mabry, a sixth-grade teacher at Pottstown Middle School, and Allan, an assistant wrestling and football coach in the district, return at the eighth grade level. Franey, a standout multi-sport athlete at Pottsgrove who volunteers his time at the Pottstown Middle School, joins the coaching ranks this year. Petro credits Goodhart with giving him his first opportunity to coach at the very young age of 18. He credits his dad, Ron Petro, with being his role model