Indians Make Vienna Little League History With Perfect Season

As his team won the Vienna Town Tournament on Monday night, head coach Chris Leggett watched his players pile on top of one another and felt the bittersweet taste of victory: The Vienna Indians had finished off the first perfect season in the Vienna Little League in more than 25 years.

“I tried to hide it from the kids, but I actually cried for a second, as corny as that sounds, as I watched the kids mob each other, because it ended so suddenly,” Leggett said. “In one way it was a relief to finish it off, but when the game is over and you realize there are no more practices, and some of these kids who have been on my team for three years and I won’t get to coach them again, it’s sad to let them go.”

For Leggett, who owns Leggett Wealth Management, a financial advisory company, and played in the Vienna Little League himself in the 1980s, the moment was unforgettable.

“It transcended baseball to me, it was about the kids enjoying the sport and enjoying each other and it was the community feel that I believe Vienna Little League has come to symbolize,” he said. “I told them there will be very few times in their lives when they get to be perfect at anything and they’ll always look back on this season as something they worked hard for and deserved.”

The 5-1 victory over the Twins on a perfect June evening sealed the Vienna Town Tournament for the Indians and capped a perfect 21-0 season, which, despite the glossy record, contained more than its fair share of Rolaids moments for the age 12 and under team’s coaches and parents.

At the end of last season, Leggett earned the ire of some parents for telling his team at their banquet that he thought they could go undefeated this season.  And even before the team held its first practice in the snow in February, Leggett was telling anyone who would listen that they’d do just that. Yet on opening day, the team was one strike away from making their coach’s boasts look empty.

“We were down 4-3 in the bottom of the sixth, with two outs and two strikes, and I was thinking, ‘man, I just made a fool out of myself.’”

But the team bailed him out as its ace pitcher and shortstop, Nate Chaput, hit a walk-off three-run homer to win the game.  The team came from behind to win games in their last at-bat on five more occasions as well, and when they weren’t orchestrating dramatic comebacks, they were bludgeoning teams into submission, to the tune of 162 runs scored and just 60 given up on the season.

Chaput led the team both at the plate and from the mound. The 12-year-old flamethrower intimidated opposing batters with a fastball that reached 73 mph on the radar gun, posting an unheard of 129 strikeouts in just 54 innings pitched, with a microscopic .38 E.R.A.  At the plate, he hit .566 with 10 home runs in 21 games.

“He was the dominant player in the league, and it always helps to have the best player in the league on your team,” said Leggett, who doesn’t have a son on the team, but serves as coach because he loves the sport and the league.

If Chaput served as the team’s Nolan Ryan, Lee “Elmo” Morrison was its Greg Maddux, with an E.R.A. under 2, along with a .458 batting average and two home runs.  Jack Jones was the fearless young man behind the plate with the guts to catch these two young hurlers, who throw from 15 feet closer to the plate than high school, college and pro players. Jones hit .400, with 16 extra base hits and 20 RBI’s.

The year’s most surprising newcomer was the team’s 10 year-old closer, Brendan Sweeney, who closed out the championship game with two hitless innings, and will be one of the team’s stars for two more years to come.

In a long season that stretched from hover under the blankets with hot chocolate games to melt in your seat 100 degree scorchers, there were contributions from up and down a lineup that also included Alex Bruning, Matthew Ziegelbauer, Connor Williams, Jack Wasilewski, Eric Seigle, Larry Rice, Jack Goewey and Quinn Eastham.

“We clearly had some stars on the team, but every time we needed someone to do something, it seemed like a different kid stepped up for us," Leggett said.

On the night before the team’s final game, Leggett tossed and turned through a sleepless night, in nervous anticipation of facing the Twins, who are coached by Bill Cervenak, the same man who coached Leggett when he played in the league as a 12 year-old in 1984.

Luckily for him, the team sailed to its 21st consecutive victory, and its place in history was sealed, as they became just the fourth team in the 59-year history of the Vienna Little League, along with the 1953, 1980 and 1983 teams, to go undefeated in both the regular season and the playoffs.

And while the team may never reassemble with the same lineup, several members of the team will be part of an All-Star team that will compete in the District Tournament. If they win that, they’ll go to State, and then on to Regionals, and, just maybe, straight to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa. in August.

But for now, it’s simply time to bask in the glow of Vienna’s first perfect season in a generation.