Published: March 12, 2015
HALL OF FAME BOUND
HUHS grad to be honored by Reading Phillies this spring
By NICHOLAS DETTMANN
Daily News
Dan Held grew up in a house where baseball had a history.
Baseball wasn’t for him, though.
“I loved basketball; I was all about it,” said Held, who
grew up in Neosho and graduated from Hartford Union in 1988. “I was a gigantic
Milwaukee Bucks fan and went to the games. I tried to emulate all those guys.”
More than 20 years after graduating from Hartford, Held will
be inducted into a baseball Hall of Fame. In May, Held will be one of two
inductees into the Reading Phillies Hall of Fame in Reading, Pennsylvania.
Joining him will be former teammate and close friend, Scott
Rolen.
“It meant a lot,” Held said when he learned of the honor.
“The community really embraced me.”
The ceremony will take place May 2. It will also honor the
team’s 20th anniversary of the Eastern League championship, which Held and
Rolen were members of.
“It was a fun experience,” Held said. “I had a lot of
success and I played with Scott, which was fun, and I still keep in contact
with a lot people to this today.”
Held is ecstatic to be inducted with his friend and
teammate.
“It’s almost fitting,” Held said.
“To have two guys that shared career milestones made perfect
since to put those two guys in to the Hall of Fame together,” said Eric
Scarcella, director of public and media relations for the Phillies.
“It’s cool they’re able to share this together.”
Held played nine seasons of professional baseball in the
Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets organizations, while Rolen went on to
star in the major leagues and win the National League Rookie of the Year Award
in 1997. Rolen also won a World Series ring with the St. Louis Cardinals in
2006.
Held was the assistant bullpen coach with the 2006 Cardinals.
“I can’t tell you the excitement with everything that goes
around and being on a championship team,” Held said. “It’s a tremendous amount
of fun.”
Baseball didn’t become Held’s focal point until later in
high school.
He loved basketball, dreaming of playing in the NBA someday.
As a freshman at Hartford, he didn’t make the basketball
team.
“I was absolutely destroyed,” Held recalled.
“I remember looking on the door expecting to see my name and
I wasn’t on it,” he added. “I stared at it and I couldn’t believe it. I was
shattered.”
He got into the weight room and worked out with his brother,
determined to make next year’s squad, which he did.
In addition to basketball, Held played football and
baseball. In 1987, Held was a member of the Orioles’ baseball team, which
reached the WIAA spring baseball tournament for the first time in program
history.
Held was All-Conference in all three sports.
He was in La Crosse for one year after high school, then
dropped out to work at a factory. He did that for two or three years.
It was OK work, and he didn’t mind it.
“There was just something different for me,” Held said.
So Held enrolled at Waukesha County Technical College. He
wanted to be a police officer and play baseball on the side.
“I just wanted to play baseball to get my degree,” he said.
As it turned out, he was pretty good in baseball. He was
drafted in the 42nd round of the 1993 Major League Baseball June Amateur Draft
by the Philadelphia Phillies.
At about the same time, he also got a college scholarship
offer from Presbyterian College and coach Tim Corbin, who is now the coach at
Vanderbilt. Corbin is 622-388 in his coaching career going into the 2015
season.
“It was good to have two choices,” Held said.
But the choice was easy: professional baseball.
“Where I grew up, it was a no-brainer,” he said.
In 1993, Held played in 45 games with Batavia of the New
York-Penn League (Single-A), where he batted .205. In 1994, he played 130 games
with Spartanburg (Single-A), where he batted .254, but was the team leader in
home runs (18) and was second in RBIs (69). The team leader in RBIs? Rolen with
72.
Held started the 1995 season with Clearwater in Single-A and
played 134 games, hitting 21 home runs and 82 RBIs — both team highs.
Held was called up to the Phillies’ Double-A affiliate in
Reading toward the end of the 1995 season and helped lead Reading to a league
championship.
Held played the 1996 season with Reading. He set a franchise
record for career home runs with 52, which stood until 2006, bested by Gary
Burnham (54).
“Dan had a great career here,” Scarcella said.
“It was extremely humbling,” Held said of playing professional
baseball. “I never took it for granted. I understood what real work was about.
I worked as hard as I could. I don’t have any regret. I’d do it all over
again.”
❑
Held gets into coaching
Held retired from baseball in 2002 and got into coaching.
After the 2002 season, Rolen was a free agent. In the middle
of that season, Rolen was traded from the Philadelphia Phillies to the St.
Louis Cardinals.
In seven years with the Phillies, Rolen batted .282 in 844
games with 150 home runs and 559 RBIs. He also won three Gold Glove awards and
was an All-Star in 2002.
In 2002, Held was a batting coach for Batavia.
In 2003, he became the bullpen assistant coach for the
Cardinals when Rolen re-signed with the team. Rolen urged the Cardinals to hire
Held as a coach.
“He’s been a good friend to me,” Held said.
In the minors, Held knew Rolen was a special kind of player.
“You could tell with his size and agility, his arm strength
was a little different,” Held recalled. “When I was playing A-ball with him, he
threw the ball over to me (from third base) and I went to grab it (at first
base) and I missed it.”
“The ball hit me right in the stomach; he smoked me,” he
added with a laugh. “I dropped for a while.”
Rolen retired from baseball in 2012. He played in 2,038
games, batted .281, hit 316 home runs and drove in 1,287 runs.
“I was very proud,” Held said of Rolen’s accomplishments.
“He’s the kind of guy who deserves it. That’s why I couldn’t be happier for
him.”
In 2004, Rolen and Held were on the Cardinals’ roster when
they went to the World Series, but lost to the Boston Red Sox, which ended the
“Curse of the Bambino.” Held said, while disappointing to lose in the World
Series, it was neat to see a historic moment in baseball.
“I was sitting in the bullpen,” Held recalled. “When we were
down 3-0, I thought this would be pretty cool to see history. I stuck around to
watch their celebration.”
Two years later, he got to celebrate a championship, which
was more unbelievable than he ever imagined.
❑
What he’s up to today
After the 2006 season, Held left the Cardinals and took on
an opportunity to spend more time with his family.
Today, he is the executive director of a youth baseball
program in the Indianapolis area — the Indiana Bulls.
The Bulls is a program of baseball players age 8-18, with 24
teams and 325 kids.
Held is 44, married to Lynn, with an 11-year-old daughter
(Téa) and a 7-yearold son (Boston).
“I really enjoy working with the kids,” Held said. “I miss
professional baseball, but I enjoy watching the kids develop and get to
college.”
But it’s funny how things work out, right?
“I wanted to be an NBA basketball player,” Held said. “I
ended up being a professional baseball player.”
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