Washington County Enterprise-Leader
‘Fletch’ Lives On As The Closer
FORMER STATE CHAMPIONSHIP MVP MAKING SALES PITCHES
FAYETTEVILLE — After a career as a starter and middle reliever, Dennis Fletcher is now the closer.
Fletcher, 49, is sales manager at Crain Hyundai of Fayetteville. He and his wife, Jennifer, recently celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary and have three children. They built a home 12 years ago on 10 acres of his parent’s land in Savoy, a rural community off Highway 16 West.
More than 30 years ago, he was named Most Valuable Player of the 1-AA State Tournament after leading the Farmington Cardinals to their only state baseball championship with a 3-2 win against defending state champion Greenbrier in 1985.
“That was something we should not have won,” Fletcher said. “We had great athletes on that team, three [players] went to Westark and two went to Arkansas, but we were district runner-up and regional runner-up, both behind Gravette.
“But then Gravette gets beat out and we put together a nice run.”
Nicknamed “Fletch” throughout his career, the right-hander posted a 26-5 record as a three-year starter for the Razorbacks. He helped Norm DeBriyn’s Hogs finish fifth in the College World Series in 1987 and 1989.
A 10-win senior season resulted in Fletcher getting drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals in the 29th round in 1989. He won his first 10 decisions in the minors, but hung up his spikes after four seasons when he was reassigned to High-A ball for the second straight year. He pocketed $850 a month as a rookie and was making $1,250 a month before calling it quits in 1993.
“What people don’t understand is that’s just (what you’re paid) while you’re playing,” Fletcher said. “If it was year ‘round, you could half-way live on that.”
Fletcher’s first job after baseball was in construction, but the drive to make more money landed him at Bob Maloney Ford in Rogers, where he learned the car business. He’s been with Crain Automotive for a year, including the past six months in Fayetteville. He said “work ethic” and “competitiveness” are baseball traits he still utilizes as a sales manager.
“It’s the perfect job — all I do is close [sales],” Fletcher said. “Our sales people get the ball rolling, get everything set up and then they’ll call me and say, ‘Hey, we’ve got a deal working,’ so I’ll come in and try to close it. “I’m the closer.”
‘Something bigger and better’
Because Prairie Grove didn’t offer baseball at the time, Fletcher moved to Farmington during the spring semester of his junior year. He played quarterback for the Cardinals that fall and led them to a 12-1 record, a district title and the state semifinals.
Even though he still loves basketball, he skipped it his senior year to focus on pitching, so his arm would be in mid-season form by the start of the season.
“I knew my future was in baseball,” Fletcher said.
It worked, but it wasn’t until after the final game of that season — the state championship — that Fletcher’s recruiting really began to take flight.
“There were five or six schools flocking to me after the game,” Fletcher said. “I thought it was pretty neat. I thought I was something. But I was holding out. I wanted something bigger and better, but didn’t know if it would happen.”
He said four-year colleges Arkansas Tech and College of the Ozarks were among the early scholarship offers as well as “a bunch of [junior colleges].”
That summer, he teamed up with Billy Dawson, who’s now head football coach at Russellville. Dawson was from Bentonville but made the drive to play with Fletcher on Fayetteville’s College Club American Legion team. Dawson had signed with Southwest Missouri State, a college that was making the transition to Division I. Dawson told Fletcher that the SMSU coach was going to offer Fletcher a scholarship after College Club’s game in Harrison.
“So I thought I was going to Southwest Missouri State, but before we could make it to [Harrison], Norm [DeBriyn] called me,” Fletcher said.
DeBriyn charted Fletcher’s pitches while he pitched a complete game against Mountain Home at George Cole Field, which is where the Razorbacks played home games at the time.
“I went all seven innings and after the game he offered me a scholarship,” Fletcher said. “He said he clocked me at 86-88 in the first inning and 86-88 in the last inning, so he liked that.”
Hog Tales
Fletcher’s 26 career victories rank fourth all-time in the Arkansas record book. His 44 starts are seventh and he also combined with Tim Sherrill and Tim Peters for one of the Hogs’ 11 no-hitters, a 9-0 victory against St. Louis on March 11, 1987.
“Nick Schmidt and Charley Boyce knocked me out of second place in career wins behind Scott Tabor,” Fletcher said.
Fletcher’s .839 winning percentage likely is one of the best ever, too, but the Razorbacks don’t list winning percentage among their records.
One of his five losses came against Rice and the team would later learn that the Owls were stealing the catcher’s signs, so batters knew what pitch Fletcher was throwing.
“It wasn’t like they were stroking me, though,” Fletcher said. “They were getting the biggest, seeing-eye singles. Just these little duck fart squibblers between the shortstop and third base.”
If Fletcher could change anything about his college career, it would be the two no-decisions he received after starts at the 1987 and 1989 College World Series. He pitched in Game 2 of the CWS both years, which is what he did during Southwest Conference play. For three years, he started the second game of each conference series.
“I can’t remember but I pitched against Georgia and I think I went 5 1/3 or 5 2/3 [innings],” Fletcher said. “I left with a 3-2 lead and a runner on second, and the reliever gave up a hit that scored the run.
“And it happened that way, almost exactly the same, in ’89. We did win both of those games, but I was not the pitcher of record.”
Cheering for Texas, Really?
After the Razorbacks were eliminated from the CWS in 1989, Fletcher’s parents dropped him off at Rosenblatt Stadium on their way home to Arkansas.
“We were done, so I was like, crap, I want Texas to win the whole thing,” Fletcher said. “If we were out, I wanted a Southeast Conference team to win it.”
Fletcher told his parents he would find a ride back to the team hotel and was able to get in to the stadium on his competitor’s pass. Texas was in the first base dugout, so Fletcher figured he would find a place to sit near the Longhorns’ fans.
Of course, they recognized the Hogs’ starting pitcher right away.
“I hear ‘Fletch! Fletch! Fletch! Come on over here. What are you doing? Come sit with us, so I sat with the Texas fans and cheered for Texas,” Fletcher said. “I had played against those guys for four years and they were some really good, nice guys and so were the fans. All of them were nice.”
After each game against Texas — win or lose, at home or on the road — Longhorns fans would form two lines near the opponent’s dugout to “shake your hand, tell you ‘good game’ and sincerely mean it, so you would get to know them.”
Fletcher sat with the parents of Scott Bryant, who was Texas’ big hitting first baseman. They had teamed up on summer teams between college seasons and had became friends.
“There was something about Arkansas-Texas,” Fletcher said.
“In baseball anyway, we were always battling one another for first and second in the Southwest Conference, so it was a respect deal I think. Yeah, you wanted to beat Texas, but I was kind of glad for them when they did well after we were knocked out. Ever since then I’ve had a lot of respect and actually like Texas.
The whole game people kept coming around and saying things like, ‘ Boy, ya’ll had a great year. Sorry you guys got beat. It was awesome watching you play for four years.’
“They were just genuinely great people, so it was good.”
Cards Come Calling
Fletcher found out on his way home from Omaha, Neb., that he had been drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals. He won 10 games and posted a 2.48 ERA while pitching in rookie ball for Johnson City (Tenn.) and the Arizona Cardinals.
During winter ball and spring training the following season, Fletcher said former Razorbacks left- handed pitcher Tim Sherrill “took me under his wing. Sherrill had been in the Cardinals’ organization for two years and already “knew everybody and everything.” Sherrill was in Triple-A ball, so Fletcher roomed with other players who were in Triple-A ball.
“Everybody I was roommates with made it to the big leagues,” Fletcher said.
Once back in Class- A ball, the rest of Fletcher’s roommates were a different story. He was trying to get better so he could advance to the next level, but was woke up a 3 or 4 a.m. most mornings when the other roommates were just getting home.
“I don’t know how they afforded it, actually,” Fletcher said. “I took it more serious than what some of the other guys did. I was trying to make it, and they were happy with just being there.”
Fletcher finally found a teammate to room with who was just as focused as he was, but the minor league life still had its drawbacks.
“During the first two years, I was like, ‘Man, send me back to college,’” Fletcher said. “They were nice parks, but in college, I got fed better. I had better facilities and there were more people on the stands. We were even on TV some back in those days.
“But holy cow, I was like, send me back to college. I was saying it as a joke, but we weren’t playing on Astroturf. There’s 12 games and you got one day off a month. You didn’t really know what day it was because it didn’t matter.”
Between seasons, Fletcher needed to make ends meet financially, so he worked as a substitute teacher at Farmington, Prairie Grove, Lincoln and West Fork.