From the Archives: The 1964 Rebels, the Team that Set the Standard
Long before the field carried Ernie Johnson's name, before decades of Rebel Baseball history had been written, and before anyone could have known what the program would eventually become, there was the spring of 1964.
Lee High School was still young. So was its baseball tradition. Ernie Johnson was only in his third year at Lee. By the time that spring was over, Johnson and a group of Rebels had accomplished something no Lee baseball team had done before. They went to State, but getting there wasn't easy.
Two Years of Coming Close
The Rebels entered 1964 after finishing second in District 2-AAAA in each of the previous two seasons. They had been close. This time was different. Lee finished district play 10–4, setting up a three-game playoff with San Angelo to determine who would advance. The opening game left little doubt about what the Rebels were capable of. The Rebs came away with a 17–2 victory, with Terry Schreiner and Jack Hanks homering as the Rebel lineup seemingly hit from top to bottom.
One more win was all they needed but San Angelo made them earn every bit of the championship. Game 2 became a pitchers duel. Senior Bobby Weber struck out 11, and Lee scratched across a run in the sixth when Hanks walked, Kim Hammond sacrificed him to second, and Billy Daniel singled him home. San Angelo tied it. They kept the game going. Seven innings became eight. Then nine. Finally, in the tenth, San Angelo scored.
San Angelo 2, Lee 1.
With Game 1 done, Game 2 was feeling big. Everything came down to this game and this time, junior Dick McFarland took the ball, and he shut San Angelo out.
Lee 3, San Angelo 0.
After two consecutive years of finishing second, the Rebels were finally champions and they were just getting started.
Two Arms Lee Could Trust
Pitching became one of the defining strengths of this team. Weber, a senior co-captain finishing his third season on the mound for Lee, ended the year 11–6. McFarland, only a junior, finished 9–2 and the Rebels were relying on him late in the district race and during the playoffs. Their coach knew exactly what he had. Ernie Johnson summed it up perfectly in the yearbook:
“It makes coaching easy when you can start pitchers like Weber and McFarland and feel certain they will get it over with something on it.”
Those two arms would help carry Lee farther than any Rebel baseball team had ever gone.
El Paso Never Had Much of a Chance
Next came El Paso Austin in the Bi-district round. Thankfully, Lee's bats came alive. The Rebels collected 17 hits in a 12–2 victory in the opener. Every Lee player who came to the plate recorded at least one hit, while Jack Hanks and Terry Schreiner had three hits each. Lee finished the job.
Lee 9, El Paso Austin 1.
Dwayne Casbeer homered in the second inning, and Kenny Jastrow later sent another one over the left-field fence. Two games, two wins. The Rebs were Regional bound.
One Loss from the End
Lubbock Monterey stood between Lee and Austin and almost immediately, things went wrong. Monterey took advantage of Rebel mistakes and speed on the bases to build a 4–0 lead in the opening game but the game wasn't over yet. In the last inning, Bucky Kimble started a rally, followed by Lance Kitchens, Kenny Jastrow and Jack Hanks.
One run came home. Then another. Then another. Suddenly it was 4–3.
But the fourth run never came.
Monterey 4, Lee 3.
For the first time in the postseason, Lee was one loss away from going home.
What happened next tells the story about the 1964 Rebels. They didn't just respond, they overwhelmed.
Lee won Game 2, 10–5.
Then they did it again. 10–5.
Across those final two games, the Rebels produced 20 runs on 24 hits, including 11 extra-base hits. In the deciding game, Kenny Jastrow provided one of the biggest swings of the season. His three-run home run in the fifth inning ignited a six-run Rebel rally.
The team that had been one loss away from elimination had something to celebrate!
Midland Lee was going to Austin.
The First Rebels to Reach State
There had never been a moment like it for Lee Baseball. LHS was just 3 years young. The Rebels arrived at the 1964 Class 4A State Tournament with a 23–7 record. Waiting for them was Freeport Brazosport and they weren't just another opponent. They were the defending state champions. Freeport entered Austin 21–5–1 and sent David Larson to the mound. Lee countered with the senior who had helped carry them there.
Bobby Weber.
What followed was a pitchers' duel.
Larson was nearly untouchable. Contemporary reports credited him with a no-hitter against the Rebels but Weber wouldn't let Lee go away. He held the defending champions to only three hits and for four innings, neither team scored. Freeport pushed a run across in the fifth and added another in the seventh. Lee's historic run had reached its end against the team that would go on to win another state championship.
Freeport defeated Sherman 2–0 in the championship game.
The same margin by which they had survived Weber and the Rebels.
Three Rebels Among the Best at State
Lee didn't leave Austin unnoticed. Three Rebels were selected to the All-State Tournament team: Terry Schreiner, Kim Hammond, and Bobby Weber.
Schreiner was only a junior and was also an All-District selection. Hammond, a senior and co-captain, had provided solid offense during the season—including a grand slam against Abilene—and finished tied for the district lead with 12 RBIs. Weber, the senior co-captain and three-year pitcher, finished his Lee career with an All-State Tournament selection after battling the eventual state champions.
There were other Rebels whose contributions shouldn't disappear into history.
Billy Daniel earned All-District honors and was Lee's district nominee for Most Valuable Player. Dwayne Casbeer, Jack Hanks, Kenny Jastrow and Lance Kitchens received honorable-mention All-District recognition. Dick McFarland, the junior who went 9–2, had delivered one of the most important performances of the season when he shut out San Angelo with the district championship on the line.
This wasn't one player carrying a team to Austin. It was a team.
And Then There Was Coach Johnson
Looking back more than six decades later, there is something particularly special about seeing Ernie Johnson in these photographs. Today, his name is inseparable from the history of Lee Baseball. The field would eventually carry his name. His career would bring championships, honors and recognition far beyond Midland. Generations of Rebels would play on the field named for him but none of that had happened yet.
In 1964, Johnson was simply a young coach finishing his third season at Lee High School and he had just taken his Rebels to State. Coach Johnson was named District 2-AAAA Coach of the Year, and the Lee yearbook captured what people were beginning to realize about him:
“In just three years at Lee High School, he has molded a state champion contender with the promise of more to come in the future.”
They couldn't have known how prophetic those words would become. Five years later, Johnson would take another Rebel team to Austin—this time all the way to the 1969 State Championship game. He would coach at Lee from 1961 through 1990 and ultimately become the namesake of the very field where future generations of Rebels would play.
But in 1964, all of that was still ahead. This was just the beginning of Ernie Johnson becoming Ernie Johnson and these were the boys who were there at the beginning.
The First
There's a great photograph preserved in the 1964 yearbook. The Rebels are gathered beside a bus. They're young. They're smiling. Right in the middle of them is the hardware they brought home from Austin. They couldn't possibly have known that people would still be looking at that photograph more than sixty years later. They couldn't have known that Lee Baseball would eventually produce generations of college players, professional players, district championships, playoff runs and trips to the State Tournament.
They only knew what they had accomplished together that spring.
They had survived San Angelo.
They had rolled through El Paso.
They had been pushed to the edge by Monterey and fought their way back.
They had boarded that bus for Austin and when they returned to Midland, they had something no Rebel baseball team before them had ever had.
A place in the State Tournament.
There would be another trip in 1969.
And another, 38 years after that, in 2007.
But someone had to be first.
That belonged to the 1964 Rebels.
The 1964 yearbook pages are a treasure of memories! I encourage everyone to go look through them. You don't have to know the players to appreciate the story of that season. In fact, writing these has proven to me that Rebels are just different. I see it in the 60's, 70's, 80's and all the way through to our most current seasons. Articles used were found in the Lubbock papers from 1975. Next up: a great series on 2000!
And one last thing, as I sit on my computer looking through old newspapers, yearbook pages, and not fundraising or doing inventory for the 2027 Rebels like I'm supposed to - I figured I would at least add some info here. You know, due diligence I suppose so I can keep writing.
-Andrea
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