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Picture credit to Pearl Zajbel

 

The Hamilton Joes look for 2024 to be what they would consider to be a bounce-back season. Despite making the playoffs in 2023, the Joes failed to successfully defend its back-to-back GLSCL championship titles by falling to the Xenia Scouts in the South Division Playoff Series.

 

Championship titles have become the expectation for the fans at Foundation Field. Hamilton was taken home the big trophy four times in its franchise history. The Joes won titles in 2010 and 2016, along with a runner-up finish in 2015 during the pre-pandemic era. Hamilton followed that with back-to-back titles coming off of the cancelled 2020 season. 

 

Tyler Thamann returns for his fourth season as the Hamilton head coach. Thamann, a former player and assistant coach for the Joes, brings a ton of GLSCL success to the table. He led the Joes to league titles as a skipper in 2021 and 2022 becoming the only person to win a championship as both a player and a head coach. 

 

Thamann, along with team founder and president Darrel Grissom, has assembled a roster that should compete for fifth league title. Hamilton is geographically blessed to be able to pull players from the Southwest Ohio and Northern Kentucky area along with out of town players from the local universities.

 

Many people outside of the area don’t realize that the Joes are named after long time Cincinnati Reds broadcaster Joe Nuxhall. 

 

Nuxhall, who was born and raised in Hamilton, was the youngest player to ever appear in a major league baseball game. “Hamilton Joe” was 15 years old when he made his major league debut for the Reds during World War II in 1944. Nuxhall earned his greatest claim to fame as the Reds radio broadcaster from 1967-2004. He teamed with Hall of Fame partner Marty Brenneman beginning in 1974. Nuxhall, who passed away in 2007, was known for his signature sign-off the air, ”this is the old left-hander, rounding third and heading for home.” 

 

The Joes open the 2024 season on Tuesday, June 4 kicking off a three-game series with the Grand Lake Mariners. Hamilton will host its home opener the next night on June 5 in front of what is anticipated to be a capacity crowd at Foundation Field.

 

 

 

ABOUT THE GREAT LAKES SUMMER COLLEGIATE LEAGUE 

The Great Lakes Summer Collegiate, founded in 1987, is a wood-bat league that is certified by the NCAA and is partially funded by Major League Baseball. The GLSCL is a non-profit 501(c)(3) entity that is one of 12 members of the National Alliance of Collegiate Summer Baseball (NACSB). The league currently consists of 7 active franchises in Ohio and Michigan boasting well over 100 players that have earned service time in major league baseball.