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Dave Stewart had the stare. Al Hrabosky's antics earned him the nickname "The Mad Hungarian." Goose Gossage threw gas and had the fierce scowl to match his pitches.
Warsaw 16-year-old pitcher Michelle Liebsch has the smile.
It is 99 degrees on a late Wednesday afternoon at Warsaw's softball field. The "ping" of aluminum bats meeting yellow softballs are the only sounds that fill the air on the sultry afternoon, outside of a few girls talking and laughing.
The question inquiring minds want answered here does not deal with Warsaw's softball team playing in the regional but if Liebsch is smiling on the pitcher's mound. Or is it some kind of nervous reaction?
"Good question," Warsaw softball coach Craig Helfrich says. "Good question."
For the record, Liebsch smiles from ear to ear between pitches.
"I really enjoy what I am doing and I just can't help it," Liebsch says. "I still remember last year pitching against the varsity team as a JV player. My curveball, I mean I just watched the girl swing and it went right around the bat. I just had to turn around and go like this (she covers her mouth) to try to keep from smiling. I love the game, I love playing, and yeah, I do smile."
The smile bewilders Helfrich and befuddles Stephen Liebsch, her dad, who also is Grace College's softball coach.
Helfrich's take? "In certain situations, I would rather see a mean look, so the batters get intimidated," he says.
Her dad? "My dad hates it," she says. "He's like, 'It's a game, you should be serious.' I'm like, 'Yeah, but I should be having fun.' He says, 'I never said that, but you should be serious during the game.'
"The only problem is, if we start to get behind, I just crash emotionally. It's hard to pitch. That's one of the reasons my dad hates it, because he knows it's a very high and low thing."
Coaches may frown upon her smile, but recently the crashes have been nonexistent.
Liebsch, a right-hander who will pitch Warsaw's Saturday regional game against Huntington North, is 11-5 with a 0.91 ERA. In 116 innings, she has struck out 140, allowed 76 hits and walked only 18.
If you ask Helfrich to name one reason 20-11 Warsaw won its first sectional since 1995, he will say pitching.
The Tigers have not one ace but two. Right-hander Ashley Wyatt is 9-6 with a 1.84 ERA. In 95 innings, she has allowed 76 hits and 29 walks while striking out 60.
Liebsch pitched two complete-game sectional wins last week, 10-3 over 13-16 Wawasee and 2-0 over 15-14 Concord. Wyatt pitched six innings and got her ninth win in Warsaw's 2-1 sectional win over 23-6-1 Elkhart Memorial. Liebsch pitched a scoreless seventh for the save.
Warsaw's team ERA is less than 1.50.
Since an 0-4 start featuring shoddy defense and mental mistakes, Warsaw has gone 20-7. Helfrich brags up his pitchers, but Liebsch deflects the praise to her teammates.
"The first couple of games were all errors," she says. "Our last game against Concord was awesome, turning three double plays. Our defense has improved a lot.
"I really don't know what it was that turned us around. Whatever it was, we started to play like we could."
All along, Liebsch has pitched like she could. She pitched 28 innings last year on the varsity squad as a freshman.
The Tigers have had a pitcher named Liebsch since the 1995 season. From 1995 through 1997, Rachel Liebsch, her sister, pitched for the Tigers. Now Rachel pitches for Stephen at Grace College.
"Of course I wanted to be like my big sister," Michelle says. "She started to play, I started to play. She pitched, I pitched."
Michelle relies on six pitches to get hitters out: fastball, curve, changeup, screwball, rise ball and drop ball. She finishes hitters off with a high fastball. "Gaaassss" as Chicago White Sox broadcaster Ken Harrelson says.
"The batters love to swing at high pitches," Michelle says.
Says Helfrich: "She has a good fastball, but her rise ball is good. A lot of teams swing at her high pitches. She sets them up. She has a good rise ball, a good curve. Her changeup is still something we need to work on."
The changeup is Wyatt's best pitch. She reads bat speeds well and adjusts her pitches accordingly.
"If Michelle had the changeup Ashley has, she would be unhittable," Helfrich says. "Ashley changes speed well."
Bread-and-butter pitches are not the only differences between the girls. Wyatt does not smile on the mound from the first inning through seventh inning.
Most pitchers don't. But smiling works for Michelle.
"That's just how she is," Helfrich says. "But she wins, so I let her do what she wants to do."
