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Tue, Oct 14 2008 

Published June 21, 2008 12:44 pm -

Terrell Lester on David Chester
Legion star loves the game of baseball


TERRELL LESTER Column

David Chester is all baseball. Through and through. He works at it. Plays at it. Lives it.

He’s a throwback. He plays baseball the way it used to be played. He enjoys baseball the way it used to be enjoyed by players.

He’s daytime baseball. Bubble gum-and-trading card baseball.

The way he frolics, he could have been a member of the Cardinalsí Gas House Gang.

The way he hits the ball, he could have been a member of the Yankees’ Murderer’s Row.

As it is, he plays baseball for the Rogers County Rangers — themselves something of a Murderer’s Row.

David Chester is the spiritual leader, the statistical leader of the Rangers, the Claremore-based American Legion team that has been averaging a dozen runs a game with a team batting average in the high-rent neighborhood of .350.

This is a team with talent. A lot of talent. Chester says so. Assistant coach Todd Bingham says so. Statistics say so.

But the face of this team, the heartbeat of this team is the 6-foot-5, 250-pound first baseman with a savage bat and a gentle nature.

“He is our dugout,” Bingham says. “He is a natural-born leader.”

David Chester is a natural-born baseball player.

He played football in high school at Collinsville. Played basketball, too. He had scholarship offers to play football at the collegiate level. Had even accepted one of them.

But baseball won out in an emotional tug-of-war with David Chester's decision-making psyche.



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