Some of the best baseball talent in the country was on display last week during the Iowa state baseball championship. Jeff Clement of Marshalltown and James Peterson of Winterset both broke the national career home run record this year, and both led their teams to the state tournament.

After 73 round-trippers for each, both of their high school careers came to an end last weekend. Winterset lost in the first round, but Marshalltown took the Class 4A title.

Clement, who hit two more homers in his first two at-bats on Thursday against Bettendorf, now holds the career home run record with 75.

As I watched this guy pitch his way to the win, fanning eight batters in six innings of work, I wondered if he had ever considered attending Iowa State. Clement and Peterson’s class will be the second group of players who won’t have the chance to play baseball at Iowa State.

It seems as if it’s been pushed to the back burner around Ames – the way the program ended after 109 years of history at Iowa State. The national pastime has all but vanished from the community. You don’t hear much talk of the sport around these parts. Cap Timm Field sits empty today, and hopes that baseball fans fill the stands again someday are still circulating among some.

With the weather turning warmer, and the state championship race in full swing last week, the 32 best teams in Iowa competed within two hours of Ames. All of those players will look to the University of Iowa or University of Northern Iowa for an opportunity to play at a Division I school, but not Iowa State.

Clement, who will play baseball at Southern California next year, said he’s been a lifelong Hawkeye fan, so becoming a Cyclone might not have been his choice.

Clement said tradition was a big part of his decision, and despite the recruiting efforts from the U of I, Clement seems to be the kind of guy to look for his best options – in other words, his best chance to be in the national spotlight and his best chance to win a national title.

However, Mike Mogard, who batted .448 and launched 11 dingers for Marshalltown, will be a Hawkeye next season.

He said he would have taken a look at Iowa State if its program was still around.

“It’s really unfortunate that they dropped their program because maybe I would have had a shot to play there as well and it would have made the decision a little tougher,” Mogard said. “No doubt about it, it would be a definite option. I never got to visit, obviously, because they dropped the program, but I’m sure it would have been a serious consideration.”

Both of these men are not only great players, but they’re also great people.

They love the game, and that has a big impact on where they attend school.

They both expressed that they’ve been playing for a team, not for themselves. They put the team first.

A race comparable to that of McGwire and Sosa happened this summer in our own back yard. That is the type of talent that’s in our own state.

This is what we’re missing.

It’s downright embarrassing to not even have a baseball program around at Iowa State.

“I knew the coaches and I knew some of the players there It was a good program and they had it great last year and they put on a good run on and it was definitely disappointing to see a program like that end,” Clement said. “It’s too bad, and you hope they get it turned around and they bring it back.”

We all hope so.

Jeff Raasch is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Odebolt. He is the sports editor of the Daily.