Ratajczak left mark at Joliet Catholic

The way Nick Ratajczak plays baseball evokes colorful descriptions.

His official nickname is "Rat," for the obvious reason. However, Joliet Catholic coach Jared Voss says, "He's a dirt bag."

But Voss is quick to add, "I mean that in a most complimentary way. He plays the game in a way where he always dirties his uniform."

Dirty, sometimes filthy, brown jersey and white pants translates into winning. JCA finished third and first in the state in Class 3A the last two seasons, and Ratajczak was a major reason.

Today, the senior second baseman is cited as the 2009 Herald News Baseball Player of the Year and the MVP of the annual all-area team, succeeding his former teammate and 2008 MVP John Ruettiger.

If you followed Ratajczak's progress through youth baseball at St. Joe's Park, at St. Raymond's Grade School and at JCA, you realize there literally is nothing he cannot do on the diamond.

He hits left-handed and oh-so-effectively from any of the 1-3 slots in the batting order.

He handles the bat and makes contact, but also will hit the long ball.

He has good speed and runs the bases intelligently.

And in the field, he and lifelong buddy and fellow all-area selection Dave Cladis, the Hilltoppers' shortstop, are as quick turning the double play as any high school combination out there.

Ratajczak's hitting prowess began to build at a ripe young age, from the left side of the plate.

"We had a neighbor who had a tee when I was 3-4 years old," Ratajczak recalled. "I was hitting off it left-handed, and he said it was one of the prettiest swings he had seen.

"My dad (Greg) liked the looks of it, and right then I became a left-handed hitter, which does have its advantages."

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And how. In three varsity seasons at JCA, Ratajczak hit .405, then .491 and now .482. He graduated as the school's career hit leader.

"Honestly, I didn't know I was close to that hit record," he said of the mark previously held by JCA assistant coach Chris Gruber. "Coach Gruber mentioned I was getting close when I was seven away. It's a great accomplishment. It tells me a lot of hard work paid off. This school has had a large number of people known for their hitting."

Ratajczak drove in 57 runs as a junior. This spring, he ripped 14 doubles, five triples and six home runs among his 54 hits. He sported lofty on-base and slugging percentages of .600 and .857, respectively. Not every day you come across a 1.457 OPS.

Cladis led off and struck out three times all season as JCA (32-5) claimed its first state baseball championship since 1994. Ratajczak did him one better, striking out twice in nearly 150 plate appearances.

Someone noticed. Ratajczak not only was named co-player of the year in the East Suburban Catholic Conference, he was among a select group of three from Illinois named to the Louisville Slugger High School All-American team as chosen by Collegiate Baseball newspaper.

Ah, what that pretty left-handed stroke has meant.

"Hitting lefty kind of came natural to me," Ratajczak said. "Lefties always hate to see lefties, and there are quite a few lefty pitchers these days. It takes practice, a lot of work in the cage, a lot of reps to be successful. You have to go up there with confidence. You have to think opposite field when you face a lefty, but that takes work, too."

Ruettiger, who recently experienced the high of the College World Series as an Arizona State University freshman, said of his former teammate, "Nick has always been one of the best hitters I ever played with, and that hasn't changed. He has always been a great teammate, too."

Once on base, Cladis and Ratajczak provided a double whammy for the opposition. Ratajczak, a regular defensive back in football the last two autumns, including starting at cornerback on JCA's 2007 state championship team, finished this baseball season with 19 stolen bases. But more than that, he always made the alert baserunning move.

"There are two different speeds," Voss noted. "The stuff on the stop watch that college coaches sometimes get caught up in, and the speed of a defensive back covering a receiver, or in going from home to first or first to third. You see Nick every day and you get to appreciate how fast he is. It's the same way on the football field."

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If running the bases did not produce the "dirt bag" on a given day, Ratajczak's efforts defensively did the trick. No problem in his mind with a headlong dive to snag a potential base hit, or to catch a popup in short right field.

What he and Cladis orchestrated together was sheer poetry.

"Ever since I was a little kid, Dave and I played next to each other," Ratajczak said. "I sent him a text on Sunday after we won state on Saturday, telling him it will be hard to find a DP (double play) combo like us, that it's going to be tough for me to ever be that comfortable up the middle.

"Every day at practice, we knew as a DP combo that it was all about trust. Whenever a ground ball was hit with a runner at first, we knew it would be DP."

Cladis took a bad-hop grounder off the chest, picked it up and flipped to Ratajczak, who was a blur turning the double play and getting the Hilltoppers out of a fifth-inning jam during their 4-1 state semifinal victory over Grayslake Central at Silver Cross Field.

Home runs are nice, but Ratajczak will take a defensive play like that one anytime. "That double play in the semis, that was the most exciting one ever," he said.

"A lot of Nick turning double plays is natural," Voss said. "But Tony (Giese, JCA assistant coach) spent hours and hours with Nick and Dave (Cladis) on turning double plays.

"It's not too often in major league baseball that you have the confidence that every time a grounder is hit in the infield with a runner on first, there will be a double play. But we felt that. We had two guys up the middle who knew where each other would be all the time without talking about it. It's like a quarterback and receiver who just know."

Not only did Ratajczak and Cladis come up through youth baseball together, several of their JCA teammates were in the same inner circle.

"I started at St. Joe's when I was 5, and that's where I met most of my friends," Ratajczak said. "When I was 8, 10 and 12, we went to World Series in Marion, Ill., in Texas and in California. Then when we were in eighth grade at St. Ray's, we won the IESA state title. All of that challenged us, and we found out what good teammates are about."

In his youth baseball days, Ratajczak said, his dad, a starting defensive end on the LaSalle-Peru football team that fell to Joliet Catholic for the state championship in the late 1970s, always was there to tell him what he did wrong with his swing.

"Actually, he still tells me," he added with a laugh. "Of course, nobody wants to hear it at our age, but he's usually right."

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With all those credits on his resume, you would assume Ratajczak, who posted a 3.6 grade-point average in the JCA honors program on a 4.0 scale, would have been in demand with NCAA Division I universities. That it did not happen confounded not only Ratajczak and his coaches, but opposing coaches in the Joliet area as well. Notable among them was Joe Rodeghero, the Lemont coach who led JCA to the Class AA state title in 1994 and frequently commented about how Ratajczak was being overlooked.

Ratajczak whittled his choice to three excellent junior college programs, and he committed last week to Gulf Coast Community College in Panama City, Fla., picking it over Mesa (Ariz.) Community College and South Suburban.

"At times the college thing got really frustrating," Ratajczak said. "I don't know if it was size or what -- I'm between 5-9 and 5-10 and weigh 175.

"But I went down to Gulf Coast and did a workout, and they said they needed an infielder. So it's great opportunity to play, and hopefully I can be successful there early."

This summer, Ratajczak is playing for the Illinois Sparks. "One good thing about the Sparks is (former JCA pitcher and quarterback) Ryan Quigley is helping coach them," Ratajczak said. "I'm happy to have him around. I thank him for all the help he has given me."

Quigley pitched at Saint Xavier, where Ratajczak's brother Brett, who was two years his senior at JCA, is on the roster.

"Brett had a couple surgeries on his labrum and hasn't been starting, but he will be playing there next year," Ratajczak said.

Little brother, meanwhile, will be at Gulf Coast, hoping to make waves.

"I've grown up really wanting to be a pro baseball player, and I hope this is where that eventually leads," Ratajczak said. "I see myself doing other things than baseball, but I can't see myself being happy without baseball."

Regardless of what the future brings, he realizes it may never get better than what occurred this spring.

"We won the IESA championship at St. Ray's in eighth grade and now a state championship senior year, it's hard to explain the feeling," Ratajczak said. "I can't stop watching the videotape of the final out of the championship game (a 3-2 victory over Chatham Glenwood).

"I hope the juniors who did such a good job this year win it all next year, too."

If that happens, rest assured it will be because a little bit of Nick Ratajczak was ingrained in all of them. As Ruettiger said, "Nick has always been a great teammate."

Even if he is a dirt bag.