Melvin Harold Gaestel calls his journey through life a prime example of divine providence.

When one looks back, it is easy to agree with him.

Wisconsin’s first-team All-Big Ten and only NCAA District 4 second baseman in 1954, Gaestel never thought he would attend the UW – Madison or play baseball for the Badgers as a member of the school’s only College World Series entry.  A 1949 graduate of Manitowoc Lincoln HS, where he co-captained the basketball team, Gaestel enrolled at the local UW Extension campus, expecting to complete two years of basic studies, then either go to college or go to work.  The turning point came in 1949 when he played third base for the Manitowoc Braves semiprofessional baseball team under coach Bob Sullivan, a former Badger player and captain for Arthur “Dynie” Mansfield.

“I can’t afford to go to UW – Madison,” Gaestel told Sullivan, who helped him get jobs doing dishes in a restaurant and cleaning offices around the Capitol Square. “I transferred at the semester,” Gaestel remembered, “and stayed in the stadium dorms” where many athletes lived while at the university.

Gaestel has vivid memories of the 1950 College World Series, getting hits in each of the Badgers’ victories over Colorado A & M and Alabama.  Gaestel started at third base against Alabama and the Badgers’ second game against Rutgers, a 16-2 defeat that ousted UW from the tournament. Gaestel had one hit in three at-bats against Alabama’s Frank Lary, who later logged 12 major league seasons and won  128 games, and had three assists, one on which he started a double play.

In 1951, Gaestel earned a  varsity letter for baseball and then was drafted into the Armed Forces. The U. S. was still engaged in the Korean War and Gaestel – who dropped out of ROTC (Reserve Officers Training) at the university because “I didn’t care for the military” – took basic training at Ft. Lee, Virginia and played baseball. “I was the last guy picked,” he recalled, replacing an injured starter at second base. “Willie Mays tried to steal home on Chet Nichols,” Gaestel related. Mays of course played 23 major league seasons while Nichols, who pitched for the Milwaukee Braves, was the ace of the Fort Lee staff. Ft. Lee  won the 1952 North Atlantic championship with Gaestel only one of two college players on a team stocked with major leaguers and semiprofessionals.

In 1952, Gaestel went to Europe, then took a physical exam at Ft. Sheridan at Highwood, Illinois before going to Korea, where he was a a 4405P typist in a Quonset hut at the 80 69^th replacement depot at Kuson, South Korea.  He returned to the United States on a ship carrying 2,000 soldiers, who learned the Korean War truce was signed July 27, 1953 during their homeward voyage. The ship docked at Ft. Lewis in Seattle, Washington where a parade honored he troops. “We were on (10 or 12) buses,” Gaestel recalled. “We chanted, ‘We want to go home!’”  Gaestel jumped on a train to Manitowoc and surprised his mother and sister who were playing cards. “I walked in the door and said, ‘Well, I’m home.’ They just about fainted.”

Thanks to Public Law 550, a.k.a. the GI Bill, and $300 a month in post-service military pay, Gaestel went back to the UW – Madison in the fall of 1953.  The following spring, he was the only veteran and the oldest member of the 1954 Wisconsin baseball team at age 24. He batted .350 and formed a doubled play combination with shortstop Otto Puls, who called Gaestel “Highpockets.” Wisconsin narrowly missed a Big Ten championship, losing out to Michigan State by a half-game because a doubleheader at Madison between the two schools was rained out on the opening weekend.  Gaestel sometimes played the harmonica on the team bus. “On Top of Old Smokey” was one of coach Mansfield’s favorites.  Gaestel graduated with a bachelor of science degree in education in 1955. In 1955-56, he earned a master’s degree in physical education so that he could become a teacher and coach.  That summer, Gaestel played for the Manitowoc Clippers of the Fox River Valley baseball league.[1]

Curiously, Gaestel never coached baseball. From 1956 to 1959, he taught physical education and American history at Shullsburg. By then, he and his wife, Karen Peppler Gaestel – had their first child, Gail. Karen – also a Manitowoc native and Lincoln graduate who worked as a licensed practical nurse  – wanted  to go back to the Fox Valley area. Gaestel taught at Green Bay’s Franklin Middle School for three years and then transferred to brand-new Green Bay West HS.

After moving to Green Bay Southwest, Gaestel coached freshman basketball, cross country and wrestling, the latter under Larry Guldberg, who led Southwest to consecutive Fox River Valley Conference wrestling titles in 1968 and 1969. “I didn’t know anything about wrestling,” Gaestel admitted, “but Larry told me, ‘Don’t worry, Mel, but I need an assistant.” Gaestel held that job for 12 years and Guldberg gave him credit for helping develop the program. “(Mel) created a lot of interest in wrestling in his gym classes,” Guldberg said in an interview published in the February 11, 1969 Green Bay Press Gazette. “Now we are probably one of the few Fox Valley schools to have a wrestling program in junior high.”[2] Gaestel and Michael Doyle also instructed 5th through 12^th grade students in a recreational gymnastics, tumbling and wrestling program on Tuesday evenings at Franklin Junior High School.[3]

Gaestel split his career between teaching and guidance counseling – 15 years of teaching and 15 as a counselor at Southwest and three middle schools after completing a counseling and guidance degree at UW-Oshkosh.  He retired in 1989 after 30 years of service in the Green Bay Area School District. “We liked Green bay so much, we decided to stay there,” Gaestel said. “Everything seemed to fit.”  His wife, Karen, passed away at their home in Lakewood, Wisconsin, on November 29, 2011 at the age of 75. The Gaestels had five children – daughters Gail (Anderson), Joanne (Phillips) and Julie (Woelfel) and sons Randy and Jim.  They were married 55 years and spent their winters at Lake Placid, Florida after Mel’s retirement.[4]

Gaestel  remains  thankful for all of his life experiences. “It was divine providence,” he said in 2018.  “The military, my education, my marriage; everything turned out for me.”

Mel Gaestel resides at an assisted living facility in New Holstein, Wisconsin.

NOTES

Direct quotes from Mel Gaestel are from a telephone interview conducted with the author on March 8, 2018.

[1] WAA Alumni Directory“Kingsbury’s Brewers Play Manitowoc Nine,” Sheboygan Press, June 27, 1956, p. 31.

[2] Len Wagner. “Guldberg Is ‘Big’ Man,” Green Bay Press Gazette, February 11, 1969, p. 17.

[3] “Recreational Sports Roundup,” Green Bay Press-Gazette, January 29, 1964, p. 22.

[4] Karen M. Gaestel obituary, December 1, 2011.  Green Bay Press Gazette, Manitowoc Herald-Times. http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/greenbaypressgazette/obituary.aspx?. Accessed March 26, 2018.