By PAUL STURM
C-T Sports Editor
psturm@cherryroad.com
Some 10 years after he debuted in the MINK League with the St. Joseph Mustangs as a mid-20s, post-military-service, junior college student and following a 3-summers stint with St. Joe that saw him become one of the league’s elite pitchers, Steve D’Amico displayed at Chillicothe’s “June” Shaffer Memorial Park stadium July 16 that, even in his mid 30s, he still can “bring it” on the mound.
Back in town with the KC Monarchs team of the Kansas City Adult Baseball League after an 8-years absence, the Overland Park, Kan., right-hander overpowered a Chillicothe Mudcats lineup of mostly reserves in what mercifully ended after only 2:04 as a 12-1 7-innings Monarchs conquest.
The non-league game, of course, didn’t impact the Mudcats’ standing in the MINK League regular-season race, in which they finished third, putting them in its playoffs for a second-straight season.
The last of the Mudcats’ four non-league games of 2025 – one against the Monarchs was rained out – largely lacked true action. D’Amico recorded 12 of the 21 outs his team got without the ball being in play and Chillicothe’s trio of lower-rung members of its pitching staff handed out a dozen bases on balls and hit another man.
Thanks to that baker’s dozen of free runners and a pair of Chillicothe errors, the KC team generated its 12 runs with only seven hits. However, more than half of those seven were loud contact as lefty-swinging designated hitter Ty White ripped a 2-runs home run over the right-field wall off starting and losing lefty hurler Hayden Cox and followed that with doubles in each of his next two at-bats. White drove in five runs with his three hits. Another Monarch chipped in a run-scoring double of his own, as well.
The Mudcats collected only four hits of D’Amico, the first of which was Ethan Murakoshi’s opposite-field triple over the right fielder’s head as the second Chillicothe batter of the game. Blake Exizian immediately followed with an “other-way” hit of his own through the right side of the infield to momentarily bring the home team within 2-1.
After Cox (0-2), a May graduate of Bethany’s South Harrison High School, briefly stabilized after his 5-walks top of the first, getting through the second inning in four batters, things unraveled again in the third.
Three batters into it, he still had a no-hitter going with two outs, but then White ripped his roundtripper to make it 4-1 after 2-1/2 innings. When Cox walked the first two foes in the fourth, Chillicothe head coach Tyler Hudlow lifted him for Chillicothean Justin Pyle.
Pyle allowed both inherited runners to score, as well as another who reached against him, to expand the visitors’ lead to 7-1.
Saving the arms of other Mudcats pitchers Hudlow might need for the approaching blitz of season-ending league games, the local product worked 3-2/3 innings, permitting six runs (five earned) on six hits and three walks.
