Merriam, Gall to join SDABA Hall of Fame

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Five former standouts will be inducted into the South Dakota Amateur Baseball Hall of Fame during a banquet scheduled for Sunday, Oct. 6 at Flandreau.
Jay Bentz of Dell Rapids, Dan Stier of Mina, Keith Gall of Redfield, Rick Weber of Flandreau and Roger Merriam of Watertown are the new inductees for 2019.
The inductees will also be honored on Saturday, Aug. 10 during semifinal day at the state tournament in Mitchell.
The Oct. 6 banquet will be held at the William Janklow Community Center in Flandreau, starting at 4 p.m. with a social hour, a meal at 5 p.m. and the banquet. Ticket information for the banquet will be released at a later date.

Here are the bios of the 2019 inductees:
Roger Merriam
The Huron native earned All-Eastern South Dakota Conference honors twice and also was named to the Rapid City Journal’s All-State team in 1982 as an American Legion baseball shortstop. He later earned All-South Dakota Intercollegiate Conference honors as a sophomore third baseman for league champion Huron College in 1983 and All-SDIC and All-NAIA District 12 honors as a junior shortstop for league champion Sioux Falls College in 1984 before graduating.
Primarily a second baseman and shortstop, he played 21 seasons (1983-2003) of amateur baseball with Huron, Salem, Watertown and the Castlewood Ravens, finishing with a career batting average of .323 and on-base percentage of .432. He played in 18 state tournaments (12 Class A and six Class B) including nine as a pick-up player — batting .352 in tournament play and earning Class B all-tourney honors in 2001 at 38 years old. He played in three Class A and one Class B state semifinal games.
A natural right-handed hitter, Merriam started switch-hitting as a senior in high school and proceeded to bat .354 as a left-handed hitter during his amateur career. He accumulated nearly 700 hits, 470 runs, drove in 336 and walked 356 times compared to only 142 strikeouts.
Merriam has also covered amateur baseball for 37 years, compiled and distributed the state’s amateur baseball poll since its inception in the late 1990s, proposed the Class A region playoff system that was adopted in the late 1980s and is still used to this day, served as player-manager for seven seasons and player-assistant manager for another seven seasons in Watertown and has umpired college, amateur, Legion and Teener baseball in the state for nearly 20 years.

Rick Weber
Rick Weber’s name is plastered all over the all-time regular season and state tournament record book after an illustrious 33-year amateur baseball career as a pitcher and infielder for his hometown Salem and Flandreau.
Weber played in 31 state tournaments, first as a Legion pickup for Salem’s 1982 state championship team and then a 30-year streak of state-tournament appearances with Salem (1984-91) and Flandreau (1992-2013).
The hard-throwing right hander compiled a 171-30 career record on the mound that included three regular-season no-hitters (1985 for Salem and 1994 and 1995 for Flandreau) and a five-inning no-no in the 1985 state tournament. He had season record of 14-0 in 1986, 13-0 in 1995, 12-0 in 1987, 11-0 in 1993 and 12-1 in 1991 and compiled two lengthy winning streaks — 30 games from 1986-88 with Salem and 25 games from 1995-97 with Flandreau. He also pitched 16 innings in one game, recorded eight consecutive strikeouts in another and pitched both ends of a doubleheader (14 innings).

Weber also was a dangerous hitter — compiling a career batting average above .400 with 186 home runs. In his final season at age 48, he batted .415 and also took pride in making contact. In 2000, he didn’t strike out in the entire season that covered more than 100 at-bats. Weber smacked three homers in one game in 1994 and drove in 10 runs in another game in 1993.
He finished his career with 12 homers in state-tournament play and won the state-tournament batting championship in 2000.
Weber played at South Dakota State from 1983-87, playing every position but catcher and first base, and batted .407 as a senior shortstop. He was fortunate in his amateur career with play with his two sons, three brothers, four brothers-in-law and three nephews.

Keith Gall
The Ellendale (N.D.) native left on his mark both as a hitter and pitcher during a 30-year amateur baseball career in South Dakota.
He earned All-Northern Intercollegiate Conference honors and All-NAIA District 12 honors twice at Northern State University in Aberdeen.
Gall played amateur ball from 1986 to 2015 — two years in Sioux Falls, five in Aberdeen and his final 23 in Redfield. He spent 22 years with Redfield Dairy Queen teams that were among the best Class B teams in the state on an annual basis.
He played on 25 district champions and four state championship squads, playing a different position on each title team — center field for Aberdeen Wendy’s Coke in 1988, shortstop for the Sioux Falls Silver Bullets in 1990 and third base in 2000 and first base in 2006 for Redfield Dairy Queen.
In 2006, Gall hit a pair of walk-off homers in district tournament play and then won four games on the mound to lead Redfield to the state championship. He was named the Class B Most Valuable Player in the state tournament.
At Redfield, Gall compiled a .412 batting average in 23 seasons with 130 homers, 900 runs scored, 875 runs batted in and 1,050 hits. He also notched 117 wins compared to only 33 losses on the mound.
Counting his time in Sioux Falls and Aberdeen, Gall amassed more than 150 home runs, 1,000 runs and runs batted in and 1,300 hits during his career that also included a number of trips with South Dakota teams to the Men’s Senior Baseball World Series at Arizona and with teams that captured four state Over-40 tournament championships.

Dan Stier
The talented left-handed pitcher and hitter enjoyed a successful amateur baseball career that was highlighted by a dominant 10-year stretch with Aberdeen Wendy’s Coke and the Aberdeen A’s from 1984 through 1994.
The Gaylord (Minn.) earned All-South Dakota Intercollegiate Conference honors twice and All-NAIA District 12 honors once at Huron College before concluding his collegiate career as a two-time All-Northern Intercollege Conference and two-time All-NAIA District 12 player at Northern State University. He helped lead the Wolves to district championships in 1984 and 1985 batting .505 as a senior on the way to earning NAIA honorable mention All-American honors.
Stier opened his amateur career in 1983 with Alpena, where he won multiple games on the same day in the district tournament to lead the team to the state tournament. He also recorded 23 strikeouts in a nine-inning game that season.
With Aberdeen, he continued to be a force on the mound and in the batter’s box for some talented squads. He went 21-3 in 1987 and led Aberdeen Wendy’s Coke to the Great Plains Baseball Organization’s Tri-State Tournament, winning most valuable player honors.
In 1988, Stier capped a 17-1 season by winning four games and leading Aberdeen Wendy’s Coke to the state Class A championship. He was again named the tourney’s MVP.
Complete statistics of his career were unavailable, but he did compile an 87-14 record in 11 seasons at Aberdeen, recorded earned-run averages under 2.00 four times. He also fanned more than 100 batters in five seasons, including 161 in 1985 when he logged 115 innings. During the same timeframe, he consistently batted between .350-.450 at the plate with a number of extra-base hits and runs batted in.
A professional walleye fisherman and fishing guide, Stier also played five years for the South Dakota Rushmores in the Men’s Senior Baseball World Series at Arizona.

Jay Bentz
Jay Bentz was one of the leaders for the Dell Rapids PBR teams that dominated South Dakota Class B amateur baseball in the 1990s and 2000s.
The Sioux Falls native was one of 11 players who helped bring baseball back to Dell Rapids in 1979, along with Brett Yeomen — a teammate at Sioux Falls College. He mainly was a catcher but also spent time as second base, mentoring younger players on the finer points of infield play during the early years of the team.
Bentz served as the player-manager for the PBR teams that won 11 district championships and nine state championships — 1991, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2002 and 2007.
He developed a reputation as a strong defensive catcher and a clutch hitter for the Dell Rapids PBR teams that he helped run for nearly 40 years.
He was known for never missing a game, developing scouting reports for opposing hitters, helping teach his team’s pitchers how to pitch and being one of the key decision makers on those championship teams.