Team reunion honors real, embellished feats

(Columbia Missourian, September 6, 2004)

In 1954, the stories were already great. At the MU baseball team’s 40-year reunion in 1994, they got a little bit better. Now, after 50 years, some have gained legendary status.
“The older you get, the better you were,” said pitcher Emil Kammer, who really did win eight games for the Tigers’ 1954 national champions. “I think all of us have gotten a lot better, all of us were 5-for-5 every game.”
...
This past weekend, all but one of the team’s surviving members, now mostly in their 70s, gathered in Columbia for the 50-year anniversary of that magical season. From listening to them, though, one might think they were still in college, on a road trip or joking around after practice.
Norm Stewart, a pitcher for the 1954 squad who went on to coach the MU basketball team from 1967-1999, approaches pitcher Bert Beckmann and outfielder Lee Wynn at a Saturday morning breakfast and starts another round of jibes.
“Now I’m going to tell you the truth,” Stewart jokes. “Bert pitched three no-hitters, Lee had 17 consecutive hits, until (hall-of-fame pitcher) Bob Feller got him out on a hard ground ball. Bob Feller, he was a pretty good pitcher, but he wasn’t as good as Beckmann.”
Then, Stewart adds, “I’m their agent.”
“Hey, I can throw 95 (miles per hour),” Beckmann says from across the table. “On two throws, 47 plus 48.”
The table erupts in laughter, as it does so many times when Stewart gets going with his fibbers.
...
Seconds later, Stewart has returned to the table to announce that shortstop Dick Dickinson was the first player to cork a bat, another joke that gets the table giggling.
...
[Coach John "Hi"] Simmons died in 1995, but most of the team lives on. Bob Schoonmaker, Jerry’s brother and later an executive for Southwestern Bell, is one of only two ‘54 Tigers who has died.
Catcher George Gleason worked for IBM for many years. Beckmann was a teacher. Jerry Schoonmaker was a union representative for Ford Motor Company. But the championship has kept them together.
“Nobody’s ever (won a championship) before in the history of the university,” Dickinson said. “So, right there, that says, ‘Hey, if you did it back then and you’ve lived 50 years, you deserve to be honored.’ Because, hell, just being around talking about it is an accomplishment.”
Friday afternoon, the team was presented with national championship rings, a common award for champion teams in present times, but something for which these Tigers had to wait 50 years. The team was also honored at halftime of the MU football game against Arkansas State on Saturday night.
For the players, though, the gifts and honors aren’t what this reunion was about. It was about the friendships and the memories.
“It’s great,” Schoonmaker said. “They’ve got memories that I don’t have, they saw things that I didn’t see, but now I remember them, and they bring back a good memory of events that took place in our times together.”

2008 Fall Roster

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Current World Series players once played at Simmons Field

Another great reason to follow College Baseball

Simmons Field is a great place to catch future Major League stars. Sometimes they're on the other team . . . and sometimes they show their future star potential at the cost of the Tigers.

Phillies slugger Ryan Howard played for the Southwest Missouri State Bears, and demonstrated his home run hitting potential against the Tigers more than once.

· May 2, 2001 @ Simmons Field: In a 12-11 win for the Tigers, Ryan Howard opened the game with a three-run homer off Ryan Stegall in the first inning.
· May 9, 2001 @ Springfield: MU's Shaun Marcum (soon thereafter to transfer to SMS) surrenders a solo home run to Ryan Howard in a 5-3 tiger loss

The Phillies' Gregg Dobbs, a former Sooner, faced the Tigers several times:

· April 9, 2001 @ Simmons Field: The Tigers lost their third straight game 9-6 to OU on this day, aided by Dobbs, who belted 3 homers in three days. In Game 2 of the series, Dobbs went 4 for 4 with 2 doubles and a homer. The weekend had started badly in the first inning of the Friday night game, as "sent eight batters to the plate in the first inning as leadoff batter Jerome Godsey reached on a throwing error by Propst and came around to score on an RBI single by Sergio Garcia. Sooner left fielder Gregg Dobbs then turned on an Endicott mistake and lifted a towering shot over the wall in right and the next three OU hitters followed with singles to put the Tigers in a hole they couldn’t dig out of."
During that same weekend, Dobbs' teammate, Jason Bartlett (now with the Tampa Bay Rays), contributed to the Sooners' Saturday win with a wind-blown grand slam.

The Rays' J. P. Howell faced Mizzou when he was a Longhorn pitcher.

· May 3rd, 2004 @ Simmons Field : After the Tigers took the first two games of a weekend series from the #1 ranked Longhorns (starting with a defeat over local product Sam Lecure on Friday), they were hoping for a sweep. But the Texas offense racked up 16 runs, which was 15 more than UT starter Howell needed, since he held the Tigers scoreless.
I remember thinking the Tigers had a good shot at a win, since J. P. Howell was reportedly injured. But, "All-American left-hander J.P. Howell, whose start was pushed back two days because of a severe cut on his foot, gave up just one hit in four innings."

The lesson learned: Even when the Tigers lose, you never know what future MLB star you'll see when you come out to the ballpark.


Former college baseball players in the 2008 World Series

Phillies

Joe Blanton, Kentucky
Clay Condrey, McNeese State
J.A. Happ, Northwestern,
Brad Lidge, Notre Dame
Jamie Moyer, St. Joseph's (PA)
Eric Bruntlett, Stanford
Gregg Dobbs, Oklahoma
Ryan Howard, Southwest Missouri State
Chase Utley, UCLA
Pat Burrell, Miami
Geoff Jenkins, Southern California

Tampa Bay

Chad Bradford, Southern Mississippi
Matt Garza, Fresno State
J.P. Howell, Texas
David Price, Vanderbilt
Andy Sonnanstine, Kent State
Dan Wheeler, Central Arizona
Jason Bartlett, Oklahoma
Evan Longoria, Cal State Long Beach
Carlos Pena, Northeastern
Gabe Gross, Auburn
Fernando Perez, Columbia
Ben Zobrist, Dallas Baptist

RSS Feeds

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Thanks to Allan Herigon for sending me this link so Mizzou Baseball fans can keep up with what's happening.

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2009 NCAA Baseball rule changes

The College Baseball Blog reported on several new changes in the rules for 2009, including:

The biggest change is the fact that they will require base coaches to wear a
helmet next season following the lead of Major League Baseball after the
unfortunate death of a minor league coach in 2007. One of the other rule changes
deal with speeding up the game with less conferences with umpires and on the
mound. The final rule change is to eliminate all the huddling around home plate
by a team after a home run or doing live play where teammates will come out of
the dugout.

There's a video discussion of the rules changes on YouTube.

DoubleAZone has more comments and quotes on the requirement for coaches to wear helmets:

According to Ty Halpin, associate director of playing rules administration at the NCAA, the MLB rule brought the committee's attention to the issue, but it was the reflection of many committee members that sealed the recommendation's passage. Many members remembered close calls where a ball nearly hit them.

"The more we talked about it, the more it made sense," Halpin said. "Coaches aren't always paying attention to the pitched ball; they're often
focusing on the runners."

It remains to be seen if college coaches will take issue with the rule the way many major league coaches, like Larry Bowa have. Bowa, the third-base coach for the Dodgers, initially refused to wear the helmet, telling various media outlets he'd walk to the base wearing shin guards, a chest protector and a facemask to make his point.

Rivals.com has news of even more possible changes:

For the past year, the NCAA has served as an agent of change for college baseball. Some coaches have agreed with the NCAA's new policies, while others have scoffed at the changes.

The NCAA may not be finished making changes.
. . .
"There has been a measure reviewed by many bodies at the NCAA to eliminate
distant travel in some of our postseason championship events."
. . .
Though a more regionalized postseason format irks some coaches, another part of the
proposed legislation seems sure to draw their ire. The NCAA says the new plan opens the door for teams from the same conference to be in the same regional.

For example, Texas and Texas A&M or Ole Miss and Mississippi State could be in the same regional in the future.

"I'm about as concerned with teams from the same conference being in the same regional as I am actually getting the teams to the regional site," Poppe said.

. . .
The uniform start date and condensed schedule remains a heated topic among coaches. Some coaches believe the condensed schedule promotes parity; others still view the change as detrimental to a student-athlete's developmental process on and off the field.

Though some coaches say that a week should be added to the schedule, don't look for any changes to be made before the 2009 season.
. . .
The NCAA is pondering the idea of decreasing the number of regular-season games from 56 to 52.

There also changes underway in requirements for the metal bats, according to College Baeball Blog:

The NCAA Baseball Research Panel, a group charged with maintaining the protocol for testing baseball bats in the college game, has recommended changes to the means for measuring performance in those tests.

The panel recommended replacing the “ball exit-speed ratio” with a “ball-bat coefficient of restitution” or BBCOR, because the latter eliminates discrepancies with
different length bats and is a more direct measure of bat performance. At its meeting in July, the NCAA Baseball Rules Committee, which oversees and determines the actual performance level of bats, approved the new protocol and established the performance standard based on data collected from available wooden bats.The committee and the research panel found that for a given bat length, batted-ball speed is a near-perfect correlation with BBCOR – that is, a bat’s BBCOR will predict the speed with which the ball will leave the bat.

Because wood and non-wood bats with the same BBCOR produce essentially the same batted-ball speeds, it is relatively easy to relate a non-wood bat’s performance
to that of a similarly sized wood bat.
. . .
To allow manufacturers sufficient time to adjust, the NCAA will enforce this standard beginning January 1, 2011, and will allow only BBCOR-certified bats in the 2011 season and beyond.

There will be no opportunity for “grandfathering” old bats.

Halpin said the change does mean that existing bats will need to be tested again, and that by 2011, bats will be required to be designated with a BBCOR certification mark to be considered legal.

Max Scherzer and Evan Frey to play in Arizona Fall League

Mizzou alumni Max Scherzer and Evan Frey will be playing for the same team again this fall: the Phoenix Desert Dogs of the Arizona Fall League.

The Arizona Fall League is considered an "elite" off-season league, a "finishing school" of sorts for Major League organizations' top prospects. The roll call of current MLB stars that have played in the Arizona Fall League over the years is impressive, including Derek Jeter and Albert Pujols. The roster size is 30 players per team.

Each Major League organization is required to provide six players subject to the following requirements:

• 
  All Triple-A and Double-A players are eligible, provided the players are on at least a Double-A level roster no later than Aug. 1.
• 
  One player below the Double-A level is allowed per Major League team.
• 
  One foreign player is allowed, as long as the player does not reside in a country that participates in winter ball, as part of the Caribbean Confederation or the Australian winter league.
• 
  No players with more than one year of credited Major League service as of August 31 are eligible, except a team may select one player picked in the most recently concluded Major League Rule 5 Draft.
• 
  To be eligible, players on Minor League disabled lists must be activated at least 45 days before the conclusion of their respective seasons.

Each of the six Arizona fall League teams is made up of a combination of players assigned by various MLB organizations.Max Scherzer played in the AFL last season, dominating the league as a closer.

Phoenix Desert Dogs 2008 Roster

You Make the Call: Archives

At the previous location of SimmonsField.com, a regular feature was the "You Make the Call" polls.

For our archives, here are a few results from those polls:

2008 MVPs:
Player: Aaron Senne
Pitcher: Aaron Crow
Freshman: Andrew Thigpen

2007 MVPs:
Player: Evan Frey
Pitcher: Aaron Crow
Freshman: Trevor Coleman

2006 MVPs:
Player: Zane Taylor
Pitcher: Nathan Culp
Freshman: Rick Zagone

2005 MVPs:
Player: James Boone
Pitcher: Max Scherzer

2004 MVPs:
Player: Cody Ehlers
Pitcher: Garrett Broshuis
Freshman: Nathan Culp

2003 MVPs:
MVP: Jayce Tingler
Freshman: Zane Taylor

2002 MVP:
Co-MVPs: Lee Laskowski & Jayce Tingler


Which newcomer will have the biggest impact on the Tigers during his career?
2005: Evan Frey, Derek Chambers
2004: Max Scherzer, Hunter Mense, Cosme Caballero
2003: Ian Kinsler
2002: Abel Newton

Tiger Bullpen

Dear Tiger Baseball Supporter:

At Mizzou, we are committed to providing the best resources for our student-athletes. We realize this can not be accomplished without the support of our fans and alumni.

We have great commitment from the University and Athletics Department, but we need support from our fans and alumni to further enhance our program. the purpose of the Tiger bullpen is to raise funds tos upport Mizzou Baseball and we invite you to join.

As a Tiger bullpen member, you will receive a newsletter that will keep you up-to-date with the Tigers. Members will aslo be invited to special events throughout the year.

We thank you for considering this opportunity to join the Tiger bullpen and become part of the team.

Thanks for your support. Go Tigers!

Head coach Tim Jamieson


For details on joining the Tiger Bulpen Club, contact Luke Cassis, Director of Operations at 573-884-8929 (cassisl@missouri.edu) or go to the mutigers.com Tiger Bullpen page.

What if Tim Jamieson had been fired after the 2002 season?

What if . . . ?

Being a man of little originality, I am borrowing [aka stealing shamelessly] an idea from a fellow Mizzou Sanity blogger. As he said, "This isn’t meant to be some rose-colored fantasy so much as a chance to do two things a) satisfy some curiosity, and b) prove my ultimate nerd-dom in front of the entire blogosphere."

And so the question is:

What if . . . Tim Jamieson had been sent packing after the 2002 season?

It was widely rumored that just such a move was being seriously contemplated by in May of 2002. This was the spring that Alden fired MU Softball Coach Jay Miller, and many assumed Jamieson would follow.

When word came just before the final series of the year that Jamieson would be back in 2003, scuttlebutt was that TJ's immediate supervisor, then-Associate Athletic Director Gene McArtor, gave his former protege a life-line that perhaps was not what Mike Alden would have chosen if not for the lobbying of Coach Mac.

According to the rumors, Coach Mac put some important expectations on the rehiring. These included making it not only to Big XII Tournament, but making it to the NCAA Regionals. In addition, Coach Jamieson would need to go get some additional training and inspiration during the summer, and return with a plan to make the changes necessary to turn the team's fortunes around.

Of course, none of what I've said to this point is cold hard fact. It's all just my recollection of the speculation going on at the time time. But the fact is that Jamieson was given another chance.

We all know the result (or at least all of us who have been paying attention). Mizzou is one of only two Big XII teams to make the NCAA Regionals the past four straight years. The other is that perennial underdog, the Texas Longhorns. And this past year, MU won the Malibu Regional - the hard way - and moved on to a Super Regional for the first time since the Supers were invented.

There are, however, still doubters - perennial Jamieson-haters who say he hasn't done enough, that Mizzou could do better.

So ... what if Gene McArtor had lost that discussion with Mike Alden back in May of 2002, and called Tim Jamieson into his office after the Northern Iowa series and said, "Sorry, old friend, but we've decided to make a change."

What then?

I'll try to be lest verbose than my fellow "What if" blogger. Just a few points:

1. Classy farewell.

Tim Jamieson has always been a classy guy, and his departure would have been no different. No recriminations, no throwing Tex Little under the bus, just a humble 'good-bye' and on to look for a job elsewhere.

Where would he have landed? Hard to say. Certainly not in the Big XII or another of the top conferences. He would have had to get a head coaching job in a mid-major conference or an assistant's job at a major school before earning his way back to the "big time".

Maybe, just maybe, he would have gone just down the road to Central Missouri State. Yes, I know Brad Hill didn't leave CMSU for Kansas State until after the 2003 season. But, what if . . .

2. Brad Hill signs on as Head Coach of Missouri Baseball.

Part of the rumors flying around that spring included Mike Alden's interest in Brad Hill, who was coaching just over in Warrensburg at Division-II CMSU. He was taking his Mules to the D-II World Series with regularity, and even winning national championships. This was a guy who excelled in recruiting, finding great players in spite of competition from several area D-I schools. He was a guy who emphasized discipline and conditioning. He was a guy who was bringing national attention to tiny little CMSU.

And he was a also a guy who reportedly was quite interested in the Missouri job - if it became available.

I have no doubt that if Tim Jamieson had been given the heave-ho in May of 2002, Brad Hill would have jumped from the MIAA to the Big XII a year earlier.

Would that have been a better deal for Mizzou Baseball?

3. The Brad Hill Tigers, 2003-2006

It's hard to say what the Tigers would have looked like, how well they would have fared under Brad Hill these past four years. A few things to consider:

· What has Hill done at Kansas State since jumping there a year later? In three years, KSU has posted a record of 87-75-2, finished 10th, 10th and 9th in the Big XII, and failed to make the Big XII Tournament or the NCAA Regionals.

This followed Mike Clark's record in his last three years of 70-90, 9th, 5th, 10th, with 1 trip to the Big XII Tournament.

This compares to Tim Jamieson's record with the Tigers in the same three years: 113-74-1; 7th, 4th, 7th; Big XII Tournament all 3 years, NCAA Regional all 3 years, Super Regional 1 year.

· Recruiting: With Jamieson gone, would Brad Hill have given a assistant's job to Tony Vitello? It's my opinion (shared by many others), that Tony V has contributed greatly to the Tigers' success, playing a key role in recruiting many of the top players the Tigers have signed over these past few successful years. (If you want to look over my shoulder into the crystal ball, you'll see that

I know of one key player on the team over those intervening years that was recruited by Brad Hill to go to CMSU, but turned him down, not only because he had a shot to play in the Big XII, but because he clicked better with Jamieson and Company than he did with Brad Hill.

My guess is that the Mizzou Athletic Department gives marginally better support to their Baseball program than Kansas State does, so Hill may have done better at MU than he has at KSU. But any time you get rid of one coach and hire another, the change has an impact on the team. I doubt if Hill would have made an immediate impact enough to achieve what Jamieson has done.

And, given the level of support Baseball gets from MU, there would not have been the option of going after a big name coach to turn things around in a Huge way. The Tigers were not that attractive a program, and they won't be until the AD raises the program up a notch or two in priority in budgeting, facilities and promotion.

Conclusion: As I said in my annual "Tip of the Cap Awards" after the 2006 season:

A really good coach, goes the argument, would not have taken a team ranked #10 pre-season and knocked it down so far they were unranked in the polls by the end of the regular season.

But Tim Jamieson, magician extraordinaire, pulled a rabbit our of his hat by pushing this team to peak at the right time, sweeping through Texas and on into a strong run in the Big XII Tournament, and all the way to somehow grabbing that last spot on the NCAA bracket.

And, to top it all off, Tim Jamieson put his name permanently in the NCAA Division I record books by coaching the only 4th-seeded team to ever win a Regional.

Coach J, you deserve an unreserved, long overdue tip of the cap (or perhaps, a tip of the magician's hat). We're proud to have you as the Tigers' head coach.