Mike Wegener is most often remembered locally for teaming with Gary Massey and Art Scott in leading Englewood High School to back-to-back Northern Conference basketball championships in 1963 and 1964. Wegener was the state's greatest scorer as a senior, averaging 26.8 points per game. The big, strong lefthander could also throw a baseball. He threw it very hard, an imposing-enough feat to earn him two years in the National League for the MONTREAL EXPOS, before arm troubles curtailed his career.

During most of the past 25 years, since his pitching days, Wegener has worked in the Denver area while residing in Fort Collins. Harry Wise, who coached 35 years at Englewood High School, considered Wegener one of his most outstanding athletes. Englewood was one of the smallest schools in the highly regarded Northern Conference, which then included such prep powers as Greeley, Fort Collins, Boulder, Aurora, Central, Longmont and Loveland.

Of the basketball teams at Englewood, Wegener teammate Massey recalled, "We may not have been the most talented team, but we worked extremely well together. As juniors, Mike, Art and I shared the scoring load, then Mike really came into his own as a senior and we relied on his great shooting."

Wegener stood 6'3". Wegener, in his final baseball game as a high schooler, struck out 18 batters but lost a 1-0 league championship game to rival hurler Daryl Brumley and the Greeley Wildcats. Passing up a basketball scholarship to the University of Denver, Wegener, after high school, signed a professional contract with the Baltimore Orioles, for which Wise was a scout.

He pitched for Bluefield, West Virginia, turned impressive at San Diego in the AAA Pacific Coast League, and was selected by Montreal in the major league expansion draft, joining the Expos for the 1969 season. Wegener had some great moments with the Expos – a shutout at Shea Stadium and a day game in which he fanned 16 batters at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. In his two seasons, he compiled an 8-20 record, with a 4.74 earned run average, striking out 159 batters in 269 innings, but control problems persisted, as he issued 152 walks. In his brief Major League Baseball career, Wegener was considered one of the hardest-throwing pitchers in the National League.

by Bud Wells - Features Editor - The Rocky Mountain News - Sunday, 17 July 1997

Special to Canadian Baseball News – 15 October 2002