Here are some observations on the four local baseball teams to chew on.

There is no question that Wauwatosa West's talented catcher Zach Bertoni can hit the baseball. But with a young Trojan team looking for leadership on the field, Bertoni needs to take a bigger part.

The local high school baseball teams are starting to get an idea on what kind of season is on the horizon for them with June coming to a close and July just around the corner.

After a slow start - for them - the Brookfield Central Lancers are starting to come around. Central recently had an 11-game winning streak stopped and brought a 7-4 Greater Metro Conference record and a 14-7 overall mark into this week's action.

The Lancers are led by Mike Bogard (Shameless plug: see my feature on Bogie in Thursday's BrookfieldNOW), Lee Severson, Mike Mierow and newcomers junior Pete Ostergaard and freshman Ryan Hinz, the last two seeing their first varsity action this year. These fellows can hit, people.

But what sets Central apart is their pitching. Starters Bogard, Mierow, Cale Ross and Collin O'Gorman were joined Tuesday by Ricky Leach, who returns to the lineup after missing 20 games for breaking the athletic code rules. Leachy will also help the batting attack. And don't forget Severson, Central's cool-headed closer.

The Lancers are two games in the loss column behind Menomonee Falls and one behind Marquette and surprising Hamilton. They have their work cut out for them, but the talent is there.

Brookfield East is still looking for its first conference win, but coach Tim Granger has some talent to draw on. Mark Altenbach, Justin Wagner, Jake Janowski and Kyle Smith give him some mound talent, with consistency being the key word here. And nobody chases down a flyball like center fielder Alex Dati or works harder behind the plate than Zach Stewart. And the ball jumps off the bat of Demetri Tongas.

Wauwatosa East's team, under first-year coach Matt Dahlstrom, has seen tremendous progress last week, topping it off with an outstanding 2-1 win over Central, which snapped the Lancers' 11-game win streak on Monday. While key seniors like Matt Karger, Mike Gouvion and Mike Brown provide steady play and leadership and juniors Eric Woodard and Jake Pipping have been solid on the mound, perhaps the Red Raiders best players are sophomore catcher Tyler O'Brien and pitcher-1B Danny Sayles.

Dahlstrom believes in his team, but how quickly the Red Raiders believe in themselves will be the difference in an OK season and a surprise one.

Wauwatosa West coach Chad Mateske was asking for volunteers to pitch the other day after losing star Spencer Lameka with a pulled left hamstring while running out a double. With a healthy Lameka and Allan Rozanski, Mateske has a solid top two starters. Ben Falk, Chris Anger and little freshman junkballer Zach Podzaline have potential.

If senior catcher Zach Bertoni can provide more leadership behind the plate to go along with his big bat and Sean Akin continues his hitting, the Trojans could win their share of games, They just went through a five game stretch where they averaged eight runs a game.

Plenty of local baseball to watch as summer really begins (this is Wisconsin, remember). So grab your favorite outdoor chair, some sun tan lotion and your favorite (non-alcoholic) drink and go watch these guys play. It's worth your time.

And remember - always be a hit and have a ball.

Once given a choice between baseball and staying married, Wauwatosa East baseball coach Jerry Toubl picked baseball. Anyone associated with Red Raider baseball over the years was happy he took the latter.

Toubl officially hung up his spikes last week - and a detailed cover story which will be in the Dec. 6 issue of WauwatosaNow. But here's a quick behind the look scenes of how hard it was for the likeable coach to step down.

He's won four conference championships in four different conferences over his 27-year career at Tosa East. He won a state title in 1997, nine regional titles and three sectional titles. His lifetime mark was 446-350, a .560 winning mark and his conference record was 284-242.

Unfortunately, he had his worse season of his career last summer, winning only six of 37 games and going 0-21 in the Greater Metro Conference. Toubl says this was not the reason for his retiring last week and he emphasized that when his team asked him that question when they met last week.

But Toubl struggled last season. The losing tore him apart and there was pain in his voice whenever we talked. He talked about hanging it up and at one point this summer he typed up his resignation and turned it in to athletic director Linda Vitrano. But Vitrano refused to accept it and wisely told him to take some time and think about it.

Last week I received an email from him, telling me "It was just time." When I called Vitrano a few days later, she told me he was literally going into the principal's office in 20 minutes and they were still trying to talk him out of it. She called me the next day and told me Toubl stuck to his guns.

Toubl recalled many memories last Saturday during an interview, but the thing he will remember the most will be all the great relationships he had with parents, players, coaches and even umpires (ugh).

Toubl cared about Tosa East baseball. In fact, he put his money where his mouth was over the years, using his salary to buy his team bats, uniforms and everything the budget didn't cover.

Tosa East will probably lean on him when the plan to build another field next to the current one when the plan goes through. Some people feel that Toubl may not be done coaching. He went ahead and put together the 2008 schedule for the Red Raiders because he thought he would be back.

He's a young 52 and suddenly, for the first time in his life, he's going to have the summer off. We all hope he enjoys it and does the things he hasn't been able to do the last 27 years.

But people have a tendency to be selfish - me included - and I hope down the road I get another chance to see Toubl doing what he did best.

Coach baseball and influence youngsters in a positive way.