College Baseball: A Lone Star Tradition
This article was written by Howard Green
This article was published in Texas is Baseball Country (SABR 24, 1994)
Collegiate baseball in Texas has one of the most illustrious traditions among any state in the Union.
From the exploits of such individuals as knuckle-curveballer Burt Hooton of Texas to the Hall of Fame credentials of Texas Wesleyan’s Tris Speaker, the state had produced some of the country’s most outstanding collegians.
Among the greatest diamond teams on the four-year level are the University of Texas 1949 and ’50 NCAA title teams under coach Bibb Falk and the Longhorns’ majestic 1975 and ’83 national championship teams under coach Cliff Gustafson, Falk’s protégé and fellow American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame member.
Gustafson added another chapter to his legendary 26-season tenure as chief of Longhorns’ fortunes on Friday, April 22, 1994, when he won his 1,33rd game to become the “winningest” NCAA Division I head coach of all-time with a 10-1 triumph over Grand Canyon. He passed college coaching mainstay Raoul “Rod” Dedeaux with 1,332 career victories over a 46-season period at Southern California.
In fact, the two active NCAA Division I mentors with the most wins nationally are both products of SWC programs. Texas-Pan American chief Al Ogletree, an All-Southwest conference catcher at Texas A&M in 1950, guided the University of Dallas and the Broncos to 1,134 triumphs in his first 37 years prior to the 1994 campaign.
Gustafson recently paced Texas to its conference-record 11th postseason tournament crown and national-high 40th appearance in NCAA Region or District play. The Longhorns also entered 1994 with a NCAA-most 27 appearances in the NCAA World Series, which has been held annually at Omaha, Nebraska, since the early 1950s.
And as a whole, Southwest Conference teams have been no strangers to the “big dance” at Omaha. Five SWC teams have captured a composite 76 victories at Omaha in 38 appearances prior to the June 3-11, 1994, festivities.
On the NAIA level, such coaching talents as Larry Hays (now with Texas Tech) at Lubbock Christian and Jim Harp of Dallas Baptist have led their respective squads to national championships while producing their shares of college standouts.
But talented and colorful student-athletes have been the bread and butter of undergraduate baseball in Texas.
Lone Star programs have produced the likes of Cy Young Award winners such as Texas’s Roger Clemens and Houston’s Doug Drabek, along with Rookies of the Year Chuck Knoblauch and Wally Moon of Texas A&M. Baylor’s Ted Lyons enjoyed an illustrious, 20-year pitching career that made him the SWC’s first member of the Baseball Hall of Fame while SMU produced 11-year major leaguer Jack Knott before the Mustangs dropped varsity baseball in 1980.
Last summer three of the top 26 players selected in the major league free agent draft came from SWC ranks. Texas A&M pitcher Jeff Granger, Texas DH-P-OF-1B Brooks Kieschnick (chosen as 1991-93 College Player of the Year four times by three different agencies) and Texas A&M pitcher Kelly Wunsch were among the first round choices.
Rice’s Eddie Dyer managed the 1948 St. Louis Cardinals to the National League pennant while TCU standouts such as Jim Busby and Carl Warwick established fine reputations in the bigs. Texas Tech’s Mike Humphreys, A&M’s Scott Livingstone, Baylor’s Pat Combs, Rice’s Norm Charlton, and Texas’s Greg Swindell and Bruce Ruffin are just a few of many SWC collegians making a major difference in their team’s hopes for divisional crowns.