2021 Inductee Bios
9 selected to Class of 2021
+ Ian Mosher as Ambassador
By Glenn Miller
Roy Hobbs Baseball
The Roy Hobbs Hall of Fame inducted 9 members with its Class of 2021.
They were elected by the 71 current active members of the Hall of Fame and the 12-member Board of Trustees in process that covered the summer months.
The Trustees also selected Ian Mosher of Halifax, Nova Scotia, to receive the Hall of Fame’s Brian Mullen Ambassador of Baseball award, which recognizes their Meritorious Service as an Ambassador of Amateur Baseball.
The Class of 2021 includes:
- Russ Bortell, Border City Brewers
- Tim Doboszenski, Minnesota Bandits
- Gary Fischer, New Jersey Twins
- John Haraldsen, Dupage Lugnuts
- Dan MacDougall, Washington Titans
- Mike Miller, Fort Myers Breeze
- Robert Misko, Orlando Baseball Association
- Robert Provost, Okaloosa Men’s Baseball League
- Paul Westwood, Pittsburgh Baseball
The 9 honorees bring membership in the Hall of Fame to 91, all of whom are pictured on the Hall of Fame wall in Roy Hobbs Player Development Complex office reception area.
The Class of 2021 and the Ambassador honoree were presented and honored at one of two induction ceremonies during the 2021 Roy Hobbs World Series.
Here is a quick look at the Class of 2021:
RUSS BORTELL
Nominated as player
In the Battle Creek, Michigan baseball community it is said that Russ Bortell was as big a deal as Corn Flakes is to Kellogg’s, the cereal company based in the city.
And that is a very big deal indeed.
He was as vital a part of adult baseball as Kellogg’s is to the local economy. In addition to his on-field exploits, Bortell helped make it possible for many others to play the game.
Bortell played in the Roy Hobbs World Series from 1997 to 2020. He also umpired from 2017 to 2020. (Russ Bortell died on Jan. 29, 2021 at the age of 63. The cause was liver cancer.)
He played for and excelled with such iconic Roy Hobbs teams as Sanches Construction and Border City, competing at the highest level. He won 17 championships. Bortell typically pitched at the top of the rotation.
Although statistics are not available, teammates estimate he compiled a record of about 65-5 with an ERA around 1.50 and a 10-to-1 strikeout-walk ratio.
His ties to baseball in his community extended beyond Roy Hobbs. He was the head baseball coach at Kellogg Community College for 17 years. His teams reached the National Junior College World Series several times and his squad was national runner-up in 1999. The college retired his uniform number (35) in 2011.
The Roy Hobbs Hall of Fame is not the first such honor for Bortell. He is also a member of the Battle Creek Area Association Amateur Sports Association Wall of Fame.
The bullpen at Nichols Field at Bailey Park in Battle Creek is named for Bortell and the late Carl Angelo, another Battle Creek baseball icon.
TIM DOBOSZENSKI
Nominated as manager/organizer
Tim Doboszenski is a fixture on ballfields, construction sites and fire houses around his hometown of Loretto, Minn. as well as at the Roy Hobbs World Series.
Doboszenski has been bringing the Minnesota Bandits to the World Series since 2001 in various age groups. His organizational wizardry and dedication meant more than 300 players have participated in the World Series in those years.
He also manages the Bandits in local leagues and tournaments and has served as president of the Loretto Baseball Association for 7 of the past 15 years,
Doboszenski manages to balance a busy baseball life with family, his profession running his own construction company and volunteer work.
His training as a first responder has come in handy during the World Series. Doboszenski has been a secretary, lieutenant and captain of his town’s volunteer fire department.
He has administered first aid on at least three occasions during World Series games.
He has been a volunteer firefighter and first responder for more than 30 years and has been married for 33 years to Beth. They have three daughters.
He still finds the time to make the Loretto Baseball Association hum. His volunteer duties include field maintenance, field upgrades, working in concession stands, scheduling games for American Legion, a 35-plus league, the 50-plus teams as well scheduling and coaching youth teams.
Although nominated for the Hall of Fame as a manager and organizer, Doboszenski is the complete baseball package. He is so talented as a player that five times he has been named his team MVP at the World Series.
GARY FISCHER
Nominated as player
Gary Fischer is more than an outstanding player.
But make no mistake about his ability. At Sacred Heart High School in New Jersey in the late 1970s he was captain of the baseball and basketball teams. Both teams won state titles.
The athleticism that led him to excel as a prep athlete is still apparent in adult baseball.
Fischer has played in the Roy Hobbs World Series since 1993 on eight different teams.
He’s excelled in other adult baseball organizations as well. In 1993, he was the United States Over Thirty Baseball League’s triple crown winner, MVP and Cy Young Award winner.
He won the Bridgeton Invitational Tournament Achievement Award for Outstanding contributions to the tournament for having played over five decades, from 1979 through 2016.
Fischer is also a force for baseball good in his New Jersey community.
He installed a batting cage and pitcher’s mound in his backyard. His two sons, neighborhood kids, teammates and young adults in the community have used the facility.
Fischer has been a coach/manager in the Salem County (N.J.) semipro league. He’s also coached in the West Cumberland Little League.
But it is his playing ability that propels Fisher to the Hall of Fame. He’s been the No. 1 or No. 2 starter on several World Series championship teams, compiling a .700 winning percentage.
Over 17 years for a team called the Twins he has a .350 batting average.
He has earned eight MVP awards on four different teams. The awards were based on teammate voting.
Now Gary Fischer has been voted into the Roy Hobbs Hall of Fame.
JOHN HARALDSEN
Nominated as player
John Haraldsen’s achievements more than 70 years on baseball fields may be exceeded only by his good deeds elsewhere.
The Roy Hobbs Hall of Fame is about more than just playing ability.
This is not his first Hall of Fame. Haraldsen is also a member of the DuPage Lugnuts Hall of Fame.
The 2021 World Series will be his 31st. He’s played on five championship teams, including one that won a AAAA title.
During one 10-year run at the World Series he started two or three times each fall and won 80 percent of his starts.
He traveled along with other players from his Oak Lawn league to the Soviet Union in the late 1980s as part of a goodwill baseball mission spreading news about the game.
Despite all he has achieved in baseball, Haraldsen’s true character shines through away from the game.
In the 1970s and 1980, Haraldsen and his wife fostered more than 50 children. At the time, there were not financial incentives to fostering.
They also adopted two children. That is in addition to raising their two children, John Jr. and Dawn.
This is all in addition to running a three-generation family business, Haraldsen’s Auto & Truck Repair, which has locations in Westmont and Darien, Ill. The business was started by his father in 1952. John took it over the 1970s and now his son runs it.
DAN MacDOUGALL
Nominated as player
Dan MacDougall is another example of a player elected to the Roy Hobbs Hall of Fame whose off-field accomplishments helped cement the honor.
MacDougall is a pitcher who has earned 8 – count ‘em – 8! – AAAA World Series rings. He pitched the semifinal or title game in 7 of those 8 years. He was elected to the Puget Sound Senior Baseball Hall of Fame in 2013.
Nominator and Hall of Famer Mic Stump said MacDougall was “one of the most dominant pitchers in the RHWS for 19 years.” That was from 1999 through 2017.
Since 2005, he pitched for the Titans dominated like a, well, titan, MacDougall pitched two or three games every fall and never lost, going undefeated from 2005 to 2018. In the 2012 World Series he pitched 10 innings in a semifinal game and won.
But it’s away from the game that he has made the most profound impact.
MacDougall and his wife, Lindsay, are both physicians who travel the world helping and healing the afflicted in third-world countries.
They volunteer work for Medical Teams International has taken them to Africa, Haiti and Indonesia. He has been nominated for the U.S. President’s Award for Medical Achievement.
“Guys like Dan are the reason we play senior baseball,” Stump said. “Here is a guy who achieved so much in the field of medicine but wants to hang out with anyone from any walk of life who can talk baseball long into the night.”
MIKE MILLER
Nominated as player
Mike Miller’s Roy Hobbs Baseball resume is outstanding, to say the least.
He has won an astounding 12 MVP awards in the Roy Hobbs World Series and played on 6 championship teams.
He is a pitcher but can also hit for power and to all fields.
As with other Hall of Famers selected as players, he does a great more than just play baseball. Just playing well isn’t enough for election to this Hall of Fame.
Miller was an assistant commissioner of Naples Adult Baseball in the league’s inaugural season and then commissioner for two years.
He has coached at high schools in Naples, which is a short drive south of Fort Myers. He started the baseball program at The Community School in Naples.
Miller has been involved with youth baseball in Southwest Florida for more than 25 years. He offers hitting lessons at his home and local fields.
He has coached in the Bonita Springs and San Carlos Park Little Leagues in Lee County.
Wherever he coaches or plays, Miller displays the same character and welcoming nature, according to those who know him such as long-time teammate Mike Wedlock. They’ve been playing together off and on for more than 20 years, ever since Wedlock moved to the area.
“He was one of the first players to welcome me with open arms to an experience which I would have never been able to predict at the time,” Wedlock said.
ROBERT MISKO
Nominated as administrator, organizer, player
Reading about Robert Misko’s achievements is like reading about three people. He has achieved so much in baseball and other places.
He is a former Navy mission specialist who donated time to charities around Orlando. He ran the Orlando Baseball Association Hall of Fame and grew that organization from a four-team Sunday league to a 26-team league with four divisions.
When serving in the Navy he started a league on Guam. For that work he received the Navy Achievement Medal.
He’s used his organizational skills helping the SafeHouse of Seminole County in central Florida. Misko and players in the Orlando Baseball Association have donated 100 bicycles to the home for battered women and their children.
Misko is everywhere, it seems.
He’s helped provide upgrades to fields for his community’s high school baseball programs.
Misko is a fixture at the World Series with teams sporting names such as Stoneage, Orlando Brewers, Wrinkle and Freedom.
He managed his team to a championship in AAA in the 53s.
Misko has also organized fund-raising baseball events in his community against teams from Holland, Canada and a group of Naval officers.
During his Navy career he was one of the finest baseball players in the service. In 1989, he played first base in a Navy-Marines All-Star game in San Diego’s Jack Murphy Stadium and was 2-for-2.
ROBERT PROVOST
Nominated as administrator
Robert Provost is the guiding, organizational, indispensable mastermind behind creating and building the Okaloosa Men’s Baseball League in Florida’s Panhandle.
He launched the league in 2002 while still on active duty as an Air Force fighter pilot. He did it all, including writing the league by-laws.
Nearly 20 years later, the league is thriving in an area with three military bases.
“Quite simply, without Bob Provost there would be no men’s baseball to be played in Okaloosa County,” nominator John Janazzo said.
Janazzo added that the league was Provost’s “brainchild.”
No Provost, no adult baseball in northwest Florida.
“The league was born behind his drive and determination, and it has been sustained through the pure grit and relentless drive to provide our area of Florida a high-quality men’s baseball organization,” Janazzo said.
Although Provost had overseas deployment when he was with the 33rd Fighter Wing stationed at Eglin Air Force Base, he kept the league going. Thanks to his hard work hundreds of men have been able to play baseball.
Provost has also been bringing teams to the Roy Hobbs World Series since 2007.
The Okaloosa league was launched the year after 9/11. Over the years of the war on terror, perhaps as many as 1,000 service members, active and retired, have played in the league.
Thanks to Robert Provost.
PAUL WESTWOOD
Nominated as player
Hall of Famer Lanny Ropke looked into Paul Westwood’s candidacy and was impressed. Ropke said he has researched more than 200 potential Hall of Famers over the years and noted the “enthusiasm and excitement for this candidate.”
Westwood has been the best player on very good Pittsburgh teams, teams that won 9 AAAA championships in Open/35 and Masters divisions over a 15-year period.
Statistics are not available on Westwood, who is a member of the National Amateur Baseball Hall of Fame. But those who have played with or against him attest to his ability and stature.
Hall of Famer Bill Devine calls him “John Wayne in cleats.”
Westwood plays shortstop, bats clean-up and is his team’s all-time leader in homers and RBI.
As with all players selected to the Roy Hobbs Hall of Famer, character is critical. Gaudy statistics alone will not get candidates into the Roy Hobbs Hall of Fame.
Westwood volunteers with Special Olympics, Little League and helps take care of his nonagenarian mother. He often takes her grocery shopping.
Even the best players make outs more often than they get his. When Westwood fails to deliver, he doesn’t sulk or pout. He simply drops the bat and runs to his position when the inning ends.
Although a Roy Hobbs Baseball star, Westwood is not a diva.
Nominator Sam Sibeto said Westwood is the sort of teammate who will show up at a field at 3 p.m. for an evening game and work draining puddles and getting the field ready.
Ambassador of Baseball
Ian Mosher
An 18-year veteran of Roy Hobbs competition with the Nova Scotia Alpines, Windsor Stars and Border City Brewers, Mosher is the 2021 Brian Mullen Ambassador of Baseball.
He is credited by members of 9 Canadian teams that now attend RHWS as being the driving force behind the growth of amateur adult baseball there and their allegiance to Roy Hobbs.
“Oh, Man, what a great selection,” award namesake Brian Mullen said. “He is a man whose positive influence on the game, teammates and opponents is superlative. I think this is a great choice – he’s what the award is all about.”
Mosher, an everyday catcher for most of those years, has demonstrated a passion for the game over the years and shown his willingness to be of service to others in the name of the game. He is known to his teammates as the “gentleman” of the dugout and has earned the respect of many an opponent.