Dukate, Al

 

Al Dukate – (1999)

 

When your fastball is around the 90 miles per hour range and a major league team drafts you right out of high school, it’s usually a pretty good sign you’ve got the makings of a professional baseball career. That seemed to be what was ahead for 1967 Admiral King High School graduate Al Dukate—almost.

Dukate, powerful righthanded pitcher in his four-year (1964-67) high school career, was the ace on three AKHS Buckeye Conference championship teams. His senior year he was first team All-Buckeye Conference, first team Associated Press All-Ohio and among his pitching gems was a no-hit no-run game against Mansfield Senior High in the 1967 BC title game.

Major league scouts followed his scholastic career every time he pitched that year, and when the June draft came around, Dukate was selected by the Chicago Cubs of the National League. Only Dukate wasn’t quite ready for the pro ranks. Instead, he opted to accept a baseball scholarship to Miami of Ohio University in Oxford where, by no strange coincidence, they had as their head baseball coach nationally acclaimed Bud Middaugh who just happened to have been head baseball coach at Admiral King High School a few years before.

Dukate played four years (1968-71) for the then-nicknamed Redskins, earning his first letter as a freshman varsity pitcher. His sophomore year saw him achieve a 10th place ranking nationally with an 11.7 strikeout average per game. Today, he ranks eighth on Miami’s all-time lowest earned run average—1.56 set in 1970. His career 2.28 ERA over a minimum of 120 innings pitched ranks seventh, his 168 strikeouts over three seasons (1969-71) is still 11th.

Upon graduation, Dukate was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in June, 1971. He was assigned to the Western Carolina League where a crushing shoulder injury in his second year ended his professional aspirations.

After a 17-year career coaching high school baseball and football, and included being named Great Lakes League Baseball Coach of the Year in 1983, Dukate still remains close to scholastic athletes as athletic director at Toledo suburb Sylvania Southview High School.