THE PLAY

(Columbia Missourian, March 14, 1994)

Stewart's victory propelled the Tigers into the semifinals against pre-tournament favorite Michigan State. The Spartans had outscored their opponents 25-13 in the World Series and posted a 25-10-1 record. But the Spartans also had lost, 5-4, to Rollins College.
The Missouri-Michigan State game had one of the most important plays in Tigers baseball history, thanks to a bit of horseplay between a pitcher and a reserve outfielder who had only three at bats during the regular season.
"The night before the game with Michigan State I was wrassling with Bob Beauman, and I fell and broke one of the lenses of my glasses,'' recalled Lee Wynn. ``I didn't dare say anything about it. So I went to batting practice and played the whole game without my right lens trying to see as best I could.''
Little did he know that he would play an integral role in the game. In the ninth inning of a 3-3 game, Buddy Cox was on first base and Wynn was called on to sacrifice him to second, one lens in and one lens out. After fouling a few pitches off, he swung and missed at a high fastball. But the ball eluded the catcher.
In a curious juxtaposition of space and sound, no one moved for three or four seconds. Finally, the umpire's cries of ``strike three'' set the scene into motion.
"The catcher realized I had struck out and he raced back to the screen,'' Wynn said. ``Simmons was saying `Run, Lee, run to first.' And I said, `Well, I'm out.' And he said `Run to first.' So I took off running for first and in all of the confusion, the catcher got confused. He picked the ball up and threw it to first base to get me, and in the meantime the other runner continued all the way around to third.''
Missouri now had the winning run on third base with one out for pitcher Emil Kammer, who to that point was hitless. But he was athletic enough that during the regular season he had played left field when not pitching and batted .273. With this game on the line, he came through.
"I got a hit, a bloop over third base - they're all line drives in the box score - on an inside pitch,'' Kammer said. ``I remember I got about 15 feet from first base and jumped way up in the air and landed on the bag.
``I think we felt that we weren't going to win, and when we won that I think we said, `Hey, we have another shot.'|''
But the story doesn't end there. In a strange bit of twisted fate, perhaps Wynn didn't strike out after all.
``To this day, I still know in my own heart that I didn't run and the catcher didn't run because I foul-tipped it,'' he said. ``But somehow, the umpire didn't see it and it was strike three to him.
``It all turned out for the best. It meant a great deal to me personally because I had not played much during the year, so it was an opportunity to be a part of something big and also be a part of a story or two.''
As for the glasses?
``I went into Simmons after the series was all over and told him, and he sort of changed colors when he thought about what could have happened. But there was no way I was going to miss playing.''