June 15, 1964: Maine knocks defending champ Southern Cal out of College World Series

In June of 1964, the College World Series was rocked by the unexpected arrival of a fearless, giant-killing pack of Black Bears.1

Making their first appearance at the national college championship tournament,2 the University of Maine Black Bears arrived in memorable fashion. The newcomers, ranked 19th in the country, beat seventh-ranked Seton Hall University, second-ranked Arizona State University, and the third-ranked defending champions from the University of Southern California.3 Not bad for a team whose home field in Orono, Maine, lacked dugouts, fences, and a scoreboard.4

Top-ranked Missouri finally eliminated the Black Bears, but not before they had cinched a third-place finish,5 a Most Outstanding Player award for sophomore pitcher Joe Ferris,6 and the respect of the college baseball community. “No team in tournament history has captured the imagination of local fans in the manner in which this Maine team has done,” tournament public-address announcer Jack Payne summarized.7

While all of Maine’s wins were noteworthy, their last upset, of Southern Cal, might have been the sweetest. Under the leadership of former Brooklyn Dodgers outfielder Rod Dedeaux, the Trojans had built a reputation—burnished in succeeding decades—as one of college baseball’s marquee programs.

Southern Cal had won four College World Series titles, including three in the preceding six years (in 1958, 1961, and 1963.)8 During that period, the program produced promising big-league talent including Ron Fairly, Don Buford, Johnny Werhas, and Marcel Lachemann—as well as Pat Gillick, who reached the Baseball Hall of Fame not as a pitcher, but as a successful front-office executive. In contrast, the University of Maine hadn’t sent a player to the big leagues since Clarence Blethen, who pitched in five games in 1923 and two more in 1929.9

The 1964 edition of the Trojans compiled a 32-9 regular-season record against college competition,10 went 17-3 in conference play, and claimed three All-America players in catcher Bud Hollowell, pitcher Walt Peterson, and shortstop Gary Sutherland.11 Hollowell had been the College World Series’ Most Outstanding Player the previous year.12 Outfielder Willie Brown, a two-sport star, chose pro football after college and played three seasons in the National Football League. (Major-league baseball fans later got to know his younger brothers, Ollie and Oscar.13)

Southern Cal started the College World Series with wins over Mississippi and Missouri before losing, 6-5, to Minnesota.14 Although the Trojans were coming off a loss, even the Black Bears’ home-state Bangor Daily News had to be realistic about Southern Cal’s talent. “Trojans Favored to Romp,” a headline declared on game day, June 15.15

Dedeaux chose sophomore Ron Cook to start against Maine. Since Southern Cal was expected to win handily, Dedeaux held his staff ace and 17-game winner Peterson in reserve to start the next game.16 Cook, a Pomona, California, native, pitched extensively in relief in 1964, also winning two starts near season’s end.17

What weapons did the Black Bears bring to the fight, besides momentum? They had a coach, Jack Butterfield, who had taken over the program in 1957 and turned the team around from a 9-12 record in 1963 to 21-9 in 1964.18 They had experience winning under pressure, having swept a doubleheader from Northeastern University at Fenway Park to punch their ticket to the College World Series.19

They had All-Yankee Conference selections in Ferris, shortstop Dick DeVarney, and outfielder Ronald Lanza.20 And they had a 5-foot-8 sophomore catcher known to his mother back home in Brunswick, Maine, as Carl Merrill. Everyone else called him Stump, which is also what the baseball world called him when he managed the New York Yankees in 1990 and 1991.21

Rain plagued the 1964 College World Series, including a day’s delay for the Southern Cal-Maine matchup.22 The delay allowed Butterfield to start Ferris, who had pitched 2⅓ innings of shutout relief two days before in Maine’s win over Arizona State.23

Ferris went undefeated during the regular season and beat Seton Hall in the first round, and his coach lauded his “poise, courage, great control, and enough English to offset his lack of a fastball.”24 The bespectacled Lebanese-American25 from Brewer, Maine, also had guts: He pitched throughout the tournament with a plastic cast on his glove hand to protect two broken bones in his left wrist.26

With 9,500 fans27 in attendance at the recently renamed Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium,28 Maine mounted a two-out rally in the first inning. DeVarney walked and went to second on right fielder Lanza’s single. Merrill smacked a line drive over the head of center fielder Brown to score both runs, giving the Cinderella team a quick 2-0 lead.29

The favored Trojans weren’t about to roll over. With two out in the bottom of the first, Ferris gave up consecutive singles to Sutherland, first baseman Joe Austin, and third baseman Daryl Wilkins to bring Southern Cal within 2-1. After a mound visit from Butterfield, left fielder Don Johnson fouled out. Years later, Merrill recalled his manager’s message dryly: “Stump, I don’t know what fingers you’re putting down, but we ought to rearrange them.” (Merrill also remembered Dedeaux needling the Maine team from the dugout, calling them “potato-pickers.”30)

The Black Bears threatened in the second and third innings but could not score. In the second, second baseman Vic Nelson doubled and was thrown out at the plate trying to score on first baseman Steve Sones’s single. That was Cook’s last inning of work; he surrendered four hits and two runs in two innings, walking one and striking out one.

In the third, Maine loaded the bases with one out against reliever Ray Lamb, a righty from Glendale, California. Lamb struck out left fielder Dick Kelliher and got Nelson to ground into a force play. Lamb turned in a shutdown performance from there. The future Dodgers31 and Cleveland Indians pitcher worked six shutout innings, giving up four hits, walking one, and striking out 10. A third Southern Cal pitcher, Joe Stucker, worked a perfect ninth inning with two strikeouts.

Meanwhile, Ferris was cruising. After giving up a leadoff double to second baseman Ken Walker in the second, Ferris retired 16 straight Trojans. Johnson’s one-out single in the seventh broke the streak, but Southern Cal couldn’t add to it.

A two-out rally by Southern Cal raised tension in the eighth. After an infield fly and a sensational catch of a foul pop by Merrill, right fielder Fred Shuey walked and Sutherland singled to put Trojans on first and second. Austin grounded to third, where sore-ankled Dave Thompson fielded the grounder, hesitated, and tried to outrun Shuey to the bag—too late. The next batter, Wilkins, again grounded to third, and this time Thompson beat Sutherland to the base for the inning-ending force.32

Johnson led off the bottom of the ninth by skying a deep fly to center fielder Larry Coughlin. Walker laid down a bunt, and Merrill threw him out by a step. Catcher Marty Piscovich, who had entered the game in the seventh, ran the count to 2-and-2. He took a powerful hack at a Ferris fastball—and missed, sealing Maine’s 2-1 win.

The crowd erupted in a standing ovation as the Black Bears carried Ferris off the field on their shoulders. He’d scattered six hits and given up one walk while striking out four. Cook took the loss, which eliminated Southern Cal; Peterson would not get another chance to start in the tournament.

Maine’s run ended two days later with a 2-1 loss to Missouri, which in turn lost the title game to Minnesota on June 18. Ferris and Thompson were named to the all-tournament team.33 Butterfield, who had already been honored as United Press International’s New England college baseball coach of the year, was subsequently named the NCAA’s college baseball coach of the year.34

Lamb and Sutherland went on to the major leagues. Players who had minor-league careers included Maine’s Lanza, DeVarney, and Merrill and Southern Cal’s Hollowell, Austin, Johnson, and Shuey. Others made a mark outside baseball. Ferris, who never pitched professionally, became an attorney and the mayor of his home city of Brewer, Maine.35 Center fielder Coughlin became a superintendent of schools.36

Dedeaux’s Southern Cal teams won seven more College World Series titles, including five straight from 1970 through 1974. He managed the 1984 US Olympic baseball team, coached the Trojans through 1986, and retired with 1,332 wins, at the time the most in college baseball history. Southern Cal’s baseball field bears his name.37

Butterfield coached at Maine through 1974, then led the University of South Florida for two seasons before taking front-office positions with the New York Yankees.38 After Butterfield’s death in 1979, the New England Intercollegiate Baseball Association honored his memory with an annual award, presented to a New England coach who exhibits Butterfield’s integrity and dedication to the game.39

The entire 1964 Maine baseball team was inducted into the school’s Sports Hall of Fame in 2018; several of its members had already been inducted individually.40 As of 2021, only two other teams of Black Bears had reached the top four of the College World Series: The 1976 squad finished fourth, while the 1982 team tied for third.41

Acknowledgments

This story was fact-checked by Mike Huber and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources and photo credit

In addition to the specific sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for general player, team, and season data.

Neither Baseball-Reference nor Retrosheet provides box scores of college games, but the June 16, 1964, edition of the Bangor (Maine) Daily News published a box score.

Photo of 1991 Topps card #429 from author’s collection.

Notes

1 According to various sources, including the National Park Service, a group of bears is actually called a “sleuth” or “sloth.” National Park Service, “Yellowstone Grizzly Bear Facts,” accessed November 7, 2022.

2 2021 University of Maine baseball media guide: 20. Accessed November 7, 2022. The university’s next big leaguer, John Cumberland, broke into the majors in 1968; he was 17 years old in June 1964 and was not a member of that year’s College World Series team.

3 Maine also lost to fourth-ranked Minnesota, the eventual tournament champion, in between the Seton Hall and Arizona State wins. No. 19 ranking from “U-M Edged by Missouri, 2-1,” Bangor (Maine) Daily News, June 18, 1964: 1.

4 Mark Emmert, “Former UMaine Pitcher Will Be Honored at Maine Sports Hall of Fame,” Portland  (Maine) Press-Herald, posted May 1, 2014; accessed November 10, 2022. A reprint of the article can also be read on the Brewer, Maine, municipal website; accessed November 10, 2022.

5 “General College World Series Records,” NCAA.org, accessed November 10, 2022: 3.

6 “U-M Edged by Missouri, 2-1;” “From Orono to Omaha,” 2021 University of Maine baseball media guide: 21.

7 “Missouri-Maine Game Postponed by Storm,” Bangor Daily News, June 17, 1964: 28.

8 Southern Cal won its first title in 1948. Baseball Reference B-R Bullpen page on the College World Series, accessed November 7, 2022.

9 University of Maine page, Baseball-Reference, accessed November 8, 2022.

10 The Trojans also played exhibition games against professional teams. Including exhibitions, they went 40-15. 2004 University of Southern California baseball media guide: 93. Accessed November 7, 2022. 32-9 regular-season record from “UM Takes On So. Cal. Tonight at 8,” Bangor Daily News, June 15, 1964: 12.

11 2004 University of Southern California baseball media guide: 71. Accessed November 7, 2022.

12 Hollowell played five seasons of minor-league baseball in the Dodgers’ chain, peaking at Double A. He also managed the Dodgers’ Rookie-level affiliate in Ogden, Utah, in 1970 and 1971.

13 Sam Farmer, “Willie Brown, Who Won National Championships at USC as Both a Player and Coach in Football and Baseball, Dies at 76,” Los Angeles Times, posted July 26, 2018, and accessed November 8, 2022; “Former Eagle Willie Brown, Brother of Former Phillie Ollie Brown, Dies at 76,” Philadelphia Tribune, posted July 27, 2018, and accessed November 8, 2022.

14 2004 University of Southern California baseball media guide: 90.

15 Headline, Bangor Daily News, June 15, 1964: 12.

16 Associated Press, “Rain, Go Away so Gophers Can Play,” Oakland (California) Tribune, June 15, 1964: 42.

17 Jerry Miles, “Milestones,” Pomona (California) Progress-Bulletin, April 22, 1964: 23; Jerry Miles, “Milestones,” Pomona Progress-Bulletin, June 3, 1964: 37. Note that the Ron Cook who pitched for Southern Cal was not the same Ron Cook who pitched for the Houston Astros in 1970 and 1971.

18 2021 University of Maine baseball media guide: 29. Butterfield never played, coached, or managed in the major leagues, though he held scouting and front-office roles with the New York Yankees for several seasons in the late 1970s. His son, Brian Butterfield, served as interim manager of the 2009 Toronto Blue Jays and put in 25 seasons as a big-league coach with six different teams, including the 2013 World Series champion Boston Red Sox.

19 Francis Rosa, “Fenway Thrills Revere’s Lanza,” Boston Globe, June 4, 1964: 43.

20 2021 University of Maine baseball media guide: 32.

21 Bill Traughber, “Looking Back: Former Sounds Manager Stump Merrill,” MiLB.com. Posted May 9, 2011; accessed November 7, 2022.

22 “Trojans Favored to Romp,” Bangor Daily News, June 15, 1964: 12.

23 Associated Press, “Maine Stays in Playoff Contention,” Berkshire Eagle (Pittsfield, Massachusetts), June 15, 1964: 20.

24 Associated Press, “Pressure-Loving Maine Nips Southern California,” Biddeford-Saco (Maine) Journal, June 16, 1964: 6.

25 Associated Press, “Pressure-Loving Maine Nips Southern California.” According to Butterfield and Merrill, Ferris’s teammates nicknamed him “Gaza” in reference to his Lebanese ancestry. A photo of Ferris in glasses immediately after the end of the Southern Cal game can be seen in the Sioux City (Iowa) Journal, June 16, 1964: B1.

26 “Pressure-Loving Maine Nips Southern California.” According to the Boston Globe story “Fenway Thrills Revere’s Lanza,” cited above, Ferris broke his wrist during practice at the end of May when he was hit by a batted ball.

27 “Joe Ferris Pitches U-M Into Finals at Omaha,” Bangor Daily News, June 16, 1964: 1. The box score published by the same paper also sets the attendance at 9,500. “Pressure-Loving Maine Nips Southern California,” cited above, gives the attendance as 9,174.

28 The Omaha City Council voted to rename the city’s Municipal Stadium in honor of former Mayor and City Councilman Rosenblatt on May 19, 1964, although formal dedication ceremonies were not held until late in June. Note the dueling headline declarations of “Rosenblatt Stadium Is Official Now,” South Omaha (Nebraska) Sun, May 21, 1964: 25; and “Rosenblatt Stadium Is Official June 28,” South Omaha Sun, June 4, 1964: 61.

29 Unless otherwise specified, all descriptions of game action are taken from “Joe Ferris Pitches U-M into Finals at Omaha,” Bangor Daily News, June 16, 1964: 1.

30 Emmert, “Former UMaine Pitcher Will Be Honored at Maine Sports Hall of Fame.” This article, written years later, places Butterfield’s mound visit in the second inning. “Joe Ferris Pitches U-M into Finals at Omaha” has Butterfield going to the mound during Southern Cal’s first-inning rally. This story opts for the contemporary account—though it’s also possible that Butterfield visited the mound in each inning. On the subject of needling, Maine third baseman Dave Thompson also called out Southern Cal’s bench jockeys as “really harsh” in “U-Maine Found Foes ‘Harsh,’” Bangor Daily News, June 18, 1964: 26.

31 Lamb achieved a minor degree of trivia infamy in 1969, when the Dodgers issued him uniform number 42—making him the first Dodger to wear that number since the retirement of Jackie Robinson after the 1956 season. Lamb was reassigned to number 34 in 1970. The Dodgers retired number 42 in 1972, and all major-league teams followed suit in 1997. Los Angeles Dodgers uniform number history, Baseball-Reference, accessed November 8, 2022; “Each Club’s Last Player to Wear Iconic No. 42,” MLB.com, posted April 14, 2022; accessed November 10, 2022.

32 “Joe Ferris Pitches U-M into Finals at Omaha”; Emmert, “Former UMaine Pitcher Will Be Honored at Maine Sports Hall of Fame.” The Associated Press’s “Pressure-Loving Maine Nips Southern California” story, cited above, gives a different turn of events: Instead of Thompson losing a footrace to third base against Shuey, it says Thompson hesitated with Austin’s groundball and threw to second too late for the force play. All stories agree that the inning ended on Wilkins’ subsequent grounder to Thompson.

33 B-R Bullpen page on the 1964 College World Series, accessed November 9, 2022.

34 “Maine Coach Voted Best in New England,” Boston Globe, June 6, 1964: 19; James Enright, “Diamond Coaches Urge World Meet,” The Sporting News, January 23, 1965: 23.

35 Ernie Clark, “Bangor Junior Stars Set for 2nd Chance,” Bangor Daily News, August 2, 2007: 1.

36 Lawrence A. Coughlin, “55 Percent Solution for Education Funding,” Bangor Daily News, May 25, 1999: A9.

37 Richard Cuicchi, “Rod Dedeaux,” SABR Biography Project, accessed November 10, 2022.

38 Jack Butterfield page on the Baseball-Reference BR Bullpen, accessed November 10, 2022.

39 As of 2022, when this story was written, the award was still being given, with a one-year break for the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. At least two former major leaguers have won the Jack Butterfield Award: Brandeis University coach Pete Varney in 2000, and Yale University coach John Stuper in 2022. “Jack Butterfield Award,” New England Intercollegiate Baseball Association website, accessed November 10, 2022.

40 Bob Kelleter, “2018 UMaine Sports Hall of Fame Inductee: 1964 Baseball Team,” University of Maine athletics website. Posted October 4, 2018; accessed November 10, 2022.

41 “General College World Series Records,” NCAA.org, accessed November 10, 2022.