FSU Baseball
By Jim Joanos
Once again, we are in the midst of a Florida State University baseball season. Once again, we have the privilege of going to Howser Stadium and enjoying the transition of winter cold weather into warm spring days and in time, some pretty hot afternoons. For many of us, it is a wonderful tradition, a great way to relax and enjoy life. It is about a lot of pleasures that we enjoy.
It is about winning. FSU wins most of the time. Over the years they have won about 70 per cent of the time. The team has never had a losing season. There have been sixty-five consecutive winning seasons. However, FSU Baseball is about a lot more than winning. It is about people and places and traditions.
FSU Baseball is about good coaching. It is about Charlie Armstrong who began the program in 1948. It is about former major leaguer Danny Litwhiler, the first FSU coach to take the team into NCAA post-season play (1956) and the first to take the team to the College World Series (1957). He was the coach who began FSU’s tenure as a national powerhouse.
FSU Baseball is about current head coach Mike Martin. Martin has been a part of forty of Florida State’s sixty-five seasons: two as a player, five as an assistant coach and thirty-three as head coach.
FSU Baseball is about a man named, Dick Howser, and a Stadium with the same name. As a Seminole shortstop, Dick Howser was FSU Baseball’s first All-American in 1957. He went on to stardom in the major leagues. He later coached the Seminoles one year (1979) and followed that by being manager of the New York Yankees and then the Kansas City Royals. As the Royals’ skipper he led them to a World Series Championship. Shortly following that achievement he died young despite a heroic battle against cancer. The FSU baseball stadium was named for him in 1988.
FSU Baseball is about a lot of professional baseball players that played for the Seminoles during their college days. A few became very successful in the majors. Among the well known catchers have been Terry Kennedy, Ken Suarez, and the current National League Most Valuable Player, Buster Posey. Infielders have included Woody Woodward, Luis Alicea, Paul Sorrento, and Jody Reed as well as Howser. Among the outfielders have been Jim Lyttle, Deion Sanders, Johnny Grubb and J.D. Drew. Pitchers have included Richie Lewis, Rick Langford and Mac Scarce.
FSU Baseball is about over two hundred players that have been drafted by the professional teams. One of them, Paul Wilson, was the very first pick in all of baseball in the 1994 draft.
FSU Baseball is about some great college players. It is about four Golden Spikes Award winners. The Golden Spikes Award is given annually to the top amateur baseball player in the country. FSU’s Mike Fuentes (1981 outfielder), Mike Loynd (1986 pitcher), J.D. Drew (1997 outfielder) and Buster Posey (2008 catcher) all received the award for their play as Seminoles. FSU Baseball is about over thirty other first-team All-Americans.
Just as importantly, FSU Baseball is about a lot of other players who never got to play professional baseball. Instead, they made it to the "Bigs" in their professions as businessmen, lawyers, dentists and teachers.
FSU Baseball is about the present team. It is about a bunch of first year players and a few old hands who were not supposed to do a whole lot but who have doing pretty well so far.
FSU Baseball is about the never ending quest to win the National Championship. It may or may not ever happen but continues as a fascinating goal.
FSU Baseball is about the parents who go to every game, home and away and live or die on every pitch. It is about seeing young people mature.
FSU Baseball is about the traditions involved in the Section B, "Animals" the "Star Spangled Banner," "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," "Sweet Caroline" and The Canadian National Anthem. FSU Baseball is about little kids who emulate their heroes. It is about ten-year-olds out back of the stadium playing catch while the Noles are on the main field.
FSU Baseball is about the fans who love their team...the ones who shell peanuts and disagree with the umpire...the ones who say nothing but frown or smile after every pitch. It is about the donors in the booster boxes, the tanned coeds, the elderly gent in the fifth row, the bleacher folks, and the young girl in the wheelchair.
But most of all, FSU Baseball is about life in its finest sense.
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