This past weekend was the last opportunity to see the Quincy University Baseball Hawks in action at Q.U. Stadium this season as they hosted a four game series with Rockhurst University. This year’s team is blessed with a great deal of talented players and is led by a very talented head coach in Josh Rabe.

For Rabe, his 11 year stint as the Hawks head coach will cease at the end of the current season has he will become the full-time Athletic Director at Quincy University, a position currently being held by interim Athletic Director Phil Conover.

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It was Phil Conover, along with others including Herald Whig sports reporter Matt Schuckman, who decided weeks ago that the number 13, the number worn by Rabe, should be retired forever by the University. The ceremony to do just that took place last Saturday on the field between games of a doubleheader. The event was MC’d by Phil Conover who was surrounded by Rabe’s family, former coaches, current players and by many former players and teammates.

Josh Rabe is an Adams County native and a graduate of Quincy University. He was also a standout athlete, going on to play professional baseball with the Minnesota Twins. Rabe returned to QU as head baseball coach in 2010.

Rabe played football, basketball and baseball at Unity High School but signed on to play baseball at Quincy University.

Rabe ended his playing days with 212 hits, 48 doubles and 170 runs scored. He was also the Great Lakes Conference Freshman of the Year in 1998 and was named the GLVC Player of the Year in 1999. In June of 2000, Rabe was selected in the 11th round in the Major League Baseball Draft by the Minnesota Twins.

Rabe got the call to join the Twins on July 17, 2006. For his short stay with the Twins that season Rabe hit .286 with 3 home runs and 7 RBI's. The following year, Rabe suffered a shoulder injury and was eventually released by Minnesota.

On a personal note, it was Rabe who broke my back window of my car years ago with a towering home run over the left field wall that landed in my backseat with all the glass along with it. Ironically, that ball cleared the wall around the same area that his personal sign will soon be hanging at Q.U. Stadium.

Congratulations Josh Rabe on a fabulous baseball career as a player and coach.

 

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