If the crack of a bat can sound like an symphony for great lovers of baseball then it’s become a number Ryan Wangen can’t get out of his head.

Wangen, 31, has played with the Albert Lea Colonels since 1997, easily making him the longest tenured player on the team and he’s not about to hang up his spikes yet.

“It’s just something that I’ve done since I was a very, very little kid,” Wangen said. “I don’t know what it is, I can’t get enough of it. If I had my choice, we’d play every single day. Every day would be a game day.”

You won’t meet many 31-year-olds that work as hard for an amateur baseball team than Wangen. He approaches the game with the determination of a high schooler looking to crack the varsity lineup. Nearly every day he gets his cuts in at Snyder Fields, taking around 200 swings off the batting tee and his Joe Mauer QuickSwing.

“You’re out there, you’re all by yourself, you just got the trees and the wind,” Wangen said. “It’s pretty calm and peaceful. Some of it’s fun, some of it’s relaxing almost.”

For 12 seasons he’s come to Hayek Field ready to accept any role the team needs on a given day. His dedication has been an asset to the team through its struggles to field enough players through out this season.

“Ryan’s a good guy to have on the team,” said Colonels manager Bill Trygstad. “He’s always here, he never misses. You can always count on him to be around.”

While many hang on and continue playing amateur baseball for many years, few continue to have the exuberance for the game like Wangen. When things awry he’s the most vocal about it. When the team needs a clutch hit he’s the first in the dugout cheering. He’s the consummate team player who loves the game.

His schedule allows him to remain committed to the game. As a teacher at United South Central his summers are free, but that doesn’t mean he’s lounging around waiting for game time. Wangen works out at the gym after taking his cuts and keeping active has helped him avoid the aches and pains others wake up to after a game.

“If I didn’t do that stuff, I think I would start breaking down,” he said.

It’s rare to hear him called by his name at the ballpark, instead he’s commonly called Otis. It’s a nickname he’s had since fourth grade and it’s stuck with him ever since.

He split time in the Albert Lea school district and the New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva school district and each place produced a nickname. The name, “Otis” comes from the fourth grade when Wangen was jumping rope in gym class. One of his friends said he looked like an awkward donkey and called him Otis as another name for a donkey.

In New Richland he’s known as “Rooster.” An assistant football coach gave him that after two-a-day football practices where Wangen would roll out of bed and hustle to football practice.

Wangen enjoyed a highly successful prep career at NRHEG where he was a career .439 hitter.

He hit .418 as a junior and .448 as a senior. Wangen also delivered when it mattered most during his junior season as he went 11-for-14 during the section playoffs.

The success of his senior season led him to be selected to the Lions All-Star game, an experience he said was spectacular.

After high school Wangen attended Gustavus Adolphus where he played football and baseball. He played four seasons of football, but only one of baseball.

Wangen said he liked football better because of the coaches. The relationships formed through sports are important for Wangen and that’s part of the reason he hasn’t become a town ball manager. He’d rather be just one of the guys.

“I want to be one of the guys and it’s hard to do both,” Wangen said. “It works best if you do one or the other. I’m out there, I make mistakes, then you go back and try to tell somebody they’re doing something wrong and you just made the same mistake yourself. I want to be a player. I don’t have any desire to manage a town team.”

The team is filled with all college-aged players and Wangen sticks out as the elder statesman of the team. Despite the age disparity the game continues to provide common ground for Wangen and the other players.

“He’s quite a bit older than most the guys,” Trygstad said. “I think he relates with them.”