蘑菇视频

Jun 11, 2025 By Rob Burchianti 8 min read

Doug Dascenzo was like most youth baseball players when he was growing up in Fayette County.

“Just like all the other kids in the area, you watch games on TV, you always dream you want to play on TV,” Dascenzo said. “But it’s hard, a very difficult thing to accomplish.”

Dascenzo did just that, though, moving up from playing in high school at Brownsville, to being part of two College World Series teams at Oklahoma State, to spending seven seasons in the major leagues.

Dascenzo is a member of the Fayette County Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2025. The 1982 Brownsville graduate was the leading vote-getter among this year’s group of inductees.

Dascenzo spoke about his impending induction, which will take place on Friday, June 20 at Pleasant Valley Golf Club, on Hall of Fame co-founder George Von Benko’s Sports Line Talk Show on WMBS recently.

“It’s really a great feeling, along with going in with all the other electees,” Dascenzo said. “It’s a little bit of a hidden gem when you talk about the area, the people that live here, the values that we have here in the county. It’s really not a surprise to see people succeed in whatever it is they’re trying to do.”

Dascenzo played 540 games in the major leagues that included five seasons with the Chicago Cubs and one each with the Texas Rangers (76 games) and San Diego Padres (21 games). The 5-foot-7 Dascenzo, an outfielder who was known for his defensive prowess, had a career batting average of 234 with five home runs, 90 RBIs and 49 stolen bases. His best season came in 1992 when he played in 139 games with the Cubs and hit .255 in 409 at bats.

“You have to be good, you have to be lucky and you have to be healthy. Those three things give you an opportunity to play at the highest level,” Dascenzo said. “We were fortunate enough to keep our head down, work at the task at hand and eventually get there.”

Dascenzo looked back on his long trek that ended with him playing and, later on, coaching in the major leagues.

“My father, like everybody else’s fathers and or mothers, were my first big influencers and of course all the coaches along the way,” Dascenzo said. “Just a few to mention, the Holliday brothers, obviously from the area years ago, and out at Oklahoma State, Gary Ward, the head coach, my uncle, who has been passed away for a few years, teaching me how to throw a curveball.

“So there were a lot of people here and there that sprinkled their ideas on you and it’s up to you to take that and make the best version of yourself.”

Dascenzo played for Al Komacek at Brownsville and recalled clashes on the diamond with Connellsville.

“Us and the Connellsville group, with all those guys, were always a big competitive three-and-a-half hours on game days,” Dascenzo recalled. “I used to really hate Mr. Sankovich, Tom, and he knows that,” Dascenzo added with a laugh. “But that was just the competitive nature of all of us. That is why it was so nice to get an opportunity to play against those guys because they were taught the right way, they were great competitors, they had compassion for the game.

“It’s always nice to bump heads against those kinds of people.”

Dascenzo also played in the Fayette County Baseball League.

“I can remember playing my first year in that league with my wife’s cousins out at LaBelle and Terry Mulholland being around and being from the area, and all the competition,” Dascenzo said. “I think it really comes down to the values and how our parents and our coaches taught us not only how to play sports but how to plan and have the discipline to do it. Really good history.”

Dascenzo was a great all-around player for Brownsville.

“I got probably most of my recognition as a pitcher, really, in high school,” Dascenzo said. “I did well as a position player and hitter.

“My first tryout camp was with the Pirates down at Three Rivers Stadium as a pitcher. We went down, we worked out, we did our thing. The people said if you wanted to go and see how you did, go find the scout who watched you and see what he thought. Well, I tracked him down, and he abruptly said that my fastball wasn’t good enough and my curveball stinks,” Dascenzo said with a chuckle.

Ironically, Dascenzo, after making the major leagues as an outfielder, did wind up actually pitching for the Cubs in mop-up duty on occasion and was highly effective at it as far as position players trying to pitch goes.

Dasdenzo wound up pitching in four games covering five innings and never gave up a run. He recalled his first mound appearance for the Cubs.

“We had a blowout game, against the Pirates, at Wrigley Field and I came in to pitch and faced Barry Bonds, one of the hitters, and got him out,” Dascenzo said. “I don’t know if that scout was still around at the time but that would’ve been neat if he was able to see that.”

Not only did Dascenzo pitch five scoreless innings for a 0.00 ERA, he allowed just three hits and two walks, for a WHIP of 1.00, and managed to record a pair of strikeouts.

When he began concentrating on being an outfielder, Dascenzo’s path to the big leagues took him from the Falcons to Florida State College in Jacksonville and then to Oklahoma State.

“Dave Holliday was the hitting coach at Oklahoma State,” Dascenzo said. “He took a trip down to Florida to do some scouting and look at players to come over to Oklahoma State in the future. He saw me play, apparently, then back when they had the January draft a lot of people don’t know about – they used to have a winter draft for the major leagues – their centerfielder got drafted and then he signed late and they needed a center fielder.

“He called me up and asked me if I wanted to come out to Oklahoma State and play center field for them as a sophomore. I said, ‘Well sure, I’ll do that.’ That’s how I went from Florida College to Oklahoma State.”

The Cowboys were a powerhouse at the time and continue to be one of the top teams in the country. Dascenzo played in two College World Series with Ward and the Hollidays at OSU.

“They had a tremendous program and a lot of really, really good players, a lot of players that came out and had really great major league careers,” Dascenzo said. “They were good for a long, long time. They handed all that down to Tom’s (Holliday) son Josh, who is the head coach there, and Robbie Walton, who was my roommate at Oklahoma State — he was a pitcher and he was injured — he’s the pitching coach there.

“They’ve got a lot of history and tradition that’s been fed down the line over the years.”

Dascenzo was selected from OSU by the Cubs in the 12th round of the 1984 draft and made his major league debut four years later and was a member of Chicago’s 1989 division championship team.

Dascenzo, who served as a defensive replacement many times for the Cubs, set a then major-league record of playing in 242 consecutive games without committing an error.

“That’s a little misleading because I was noted for my defense by the time I got to the major league level,” Dascenzo said. “I got a couple hits here and there but I was noted for my defense. I would get put into the game in the eighth inning if we had a lead and hopefully help contribute to solidify the win. So a lot of times, out of those 242 games, it might’ve been a 120 innings or whatever.

“But, still, the fact of the matter is it was a National League record at the time.”

Dascenzo’s baseball career didn’t end when his playing days did in 1996. He continued on as a coach in the Padres and the Altanta Braves organizations and wound up with 40 years in professional baseball.

He was more than happy to share his knowledge of the game as a coach.

“That’s all we try to do is pass down what we have learned from either our fathers or other coaches we’ve had and to watch other young people be successful and achieve their dreams,” Dascenzo said.

Hall of Fame festivities will be held on June 20 beginning with the annual golf outing at 8:30 a.m. followed by the luncheon and inductions at Pleasant Valley Golf Club in Connellsville. Golfers can register and luncheon tickets can be purchased by contacting Katie Propes by phone (724-415-2211) or email (kpropes@occluss.com).