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Editor’s Note: Our condolences to the Lutz family, many of whom were involved in sponsoring, managing and playing on the South Lebanon TNT ISC II team in 2006-2008.
Well-known South Lebanon fastpitch hurler Barry Lutz, 64, was also well connected at Elco High School.
By PAT HUGGINS
Staff Writer
Its time has long since passed, but the sport of men’s fastpitch softball was once the main summer attraction for many a Lebanon County sports fan.
And when those fans flocked to Prescott or another local softball diamond to check out a game, Barry Lutz was often one of the men they came specifically to see.
A dominant pitcher and fixture on the local softball scene for the better part of four decades, Lutz passed away Wednesday morning of an apparent heart attack. He was 64.
Lutz leaves behind a wife, Donna, who serves as the Lebanon County Recorder of Deeds, and an adult daughter, Meredith. His list of loved ones also includes other family members, as well as a long list of friends and admirers, including Elco High School softball coach Dennis Morgan.
Lutz had served as an assistant coach on Morgan’s staff for the past three seasons and was a popular figure with his fellow coaches and the Elco players, who looked at the former ace pitcher for South Lebanon as both a mentor and grandfather figure.
To Morgan, though, Lutz was simply a friend, a friend he, and many others, are simply devastated to have lost.
“He was a fellow player and a fellow coach, but most of all he was a friend and a straight shooter,” said Morgan. “What I really liked about him was he wouldn’t pull punches. He’d say, ‘This is what I think, but you’re the head coach. It’s your decision.’ That’s why I wanted him (on the coaching staff). You could trust him.”
Lutz, who began his softball pitching career in 1968, could also be counted on to teach the finer points of the game to Elco’s pitchers, who whether they knew it or not were being coached by a member of the Central Chapter of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame (1995 inductee) and someone who if you were a hitter during his heyday on the mound in the 1970s and ’80s was not easy to reach base against.
“Barry wasn’t a super-fast pitcher, but he did stuff with the ball not many could do,” said Cliff Swisher, a teammate from the late ’70s to the late ’80s when the South Lebanon team was sponsored by Wet Your Whistle Beverage. “He had a great drop ball. He didn’t try to strike everybody out, he let the team behind him make the plays.”
“(Hitters) knew he wasn’t gonna throw it past ’em, but they knew when he was throwing they had a game on their hands. He didn’t lose too many games.”
He did, however, win many.
At the time of his Hall of Fame induction in 1995, Lutz had racked up 686 career wins, 163 shutouts, 12 no-hitters and six perfect games for the South Lebanon/Country House/Wet Your Whistle franchise and 835 victories overall. He also had the distinction of once earning a win over Eddie Feigner, of “King and His Court” fame, while also connecting for a double and a home run off the pitching great.
But according to Swisher, Lutz, a 1964 Elco grad, was more than just a superb pitcher. He was also an all-star when it came to simply being a teammate.
“He was a great guy,” Swisher said. “Not a rah-rah type, but he was there to support you. When you did something good, he was always there to congratulate you. And when you did something wrong, he’d tell you to forget it. Just a great teammate.”
But Lutz was also a man who took his favorite sport, and the job of teaching it to others, very seriously.
“He would tell the pitchers, ‘Do you want to pitch or just throw?'” said Morgan. “He had the respect, and that goes beyond the pitchers. When he wasn’t at practice, the girls would ask, ‘When’s he coming back?’ They all respected him.
“The family is in all our prayers.” “Barry was a great person,” said Elco athletic director Doug Bohannon, “and had a lot of passion for the sport of softball. And he really enjoyed coaching the girls. The coaches really enjoyed him and he had a great rapport with many of the players.”
As a result of that close bond between Lutz and the team, the Raiders will be in mourning today and for many days to come. But they will also go on with Thursday’s planned open gym workout since, as Morgan noted, Lutz would have wanted it that way.
Outside of spending time with his family, there was nothing Lutz enjoyed more than the sport of softball.
“Barry would want the girls to get together to practice,” Morgan said. “It was his life. All he talked about was coaching. He just loved the game.”
And the game, and his team, loved him back.
“I guess you know who we’re dedicating the season to,” Morgan said.
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