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At age five, Clay High School grad Jonathan Labuhn, 19, son of Mark and Kerri Labuhn, began going to the Lutheran
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Fast pitch softball pitcher
Jonathan Labuhn.
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Orphans' Home gymnasium to watch his grandfather, Jerry Labuhn, give fastpitch pitching lessons to area school girls.
Over the years Jonathan, too, learned the same pitching skills, having mastery over change-up, drop, rise, curve and fastball pitches. What he did not have was a men's fast pitch team to play or pitch for.
Men's fast pitch softball has been long absent from the northwest Ohio and southern Michigan areas.
Like other area youth Labuhn played in the Oregon Recreation leagues and travel teams and then on junior varsity and varsity teams at Clay High School, mostly as a catcher on the baseball team.
Highlights of those years were playing in a week-long tournament as a 12-year-old with an Oregon Junior Eagle baseball team at Cooperstown and being named Most Valuable Player in 2009 during the Toledo City League final four playoffs, which Clay eventually won and became CL champions.
Over the years, Labuhn still practiced his fast pitch softball pitching skills. This summer, having finished his first year as a pharmacy student at the University of Findlay, he became curious as to if or where men's fast pitch softball was still being played anywhere.
Through contact with the office of the United States National Men's Softball Team, he was connected with the Ashland, Ohio, StockPack Men's Fastpitch Team and was offered a chance to play for them in a tournament in Frankenmuth, Michigan. He said it was the beginning of an unexpected and exciting summer as a position player and pitcher for five different fast pitch teams from four different states in seven different cities in Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, and Iowa.
Being seen at Frankenmuth and other tournaments, he was asked to play for the Westerville Capitals (Ohio), the Reese Bulldogs (Mich.), the Richville Fastpitch Team (Mich.), and the Ramsey-Bowen Financial team from Augusta, Illinois. Play took him not only to Frankenmuth, Columbus and Ashland, it also took him to Rolla, Missouri; Des Moines, Iowa; Vassar, Michigan and Midland, Michigan.
In Missouri for the Reese Bulldogs in the ASA U-18 National Championship Tournament, Labuhn pitched his first no-hit ball game.
In Des Moines at the North American Fastpitch Association World Tournament, he played for the 19-and-under Ramsey-Bowen Financial team and the 23-and-under Capitals. The latter team's one loss was to the tournament champion Waseda University team from Japan.
Labuhn’s summer fast pitch odyssey ended playing for Richville Fastpitch in the International Fastpitch Congress Tournament in Midland, Michigan.
He said after having never seen a men's fast pitch game until he himself played in one, then being recruited by five different teams, playing in seven different cities in four different states, carrying an aggregate batting average of well over .600 and as a rookie pitching his first no-hit game, made his summer of 2010 most memorable.
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