The Spirit of Badger Baseball by Steven D. Schmitt This book covers the entire history of men’s baseball at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, the school’s first intercollegiate sport. The student-run Mendotas played their first game on April 30, 1870 to the final Division I varsity game against Purdue on May 10, 1991. The format is a chronological narrative with player interviews or newspaper and Badger yearbook accounts as the main ingredients. Student baseball players organized the first Wisconsin team, called the Mendotas, in 1870. They won their first game, 53-18, and posted a 4-1 record. Pitchers threw underhand, batters called for the pitch they wanted and fielders lacked gloves. Second baseman George Noyes published the team lineup in a 1911 article for Wisconsin Alumni magazine. Player Position Future Occupation Horace M. Wells Catcher Attorney E. W. Hulse Pitcher Attorney, McPherson, KS B. W. James Shortstop Attorney Henry C. “Cullie”Adams First Base Teacher, Ann Arbor, MI George W. Noyes Second Base Attorney, Milwaukee, WI Thomas Griffith Third Base Unknown C. S. Montgomery Left Field Attorney, Omaha, NE L. R. Larson Center Field Attorney, Minneapolis, MN Henry M. Chittenden Right Field Archdeacon, Alton, IL Throughout the 1870s, Wisconsin sometimes skipped the baseball season because of a lack of players, a home field, or because of bad weather. In 1883, Wisconsin joined the North West College Base Ball League with Northwestern, Beloit and Racine Colleges and, later, Lake Forest. The 1881-85 team produced Wisconsin’s first champions (PHOTO BELOW) . UW won league titles four straight seasons 1884-1887 and six in 10 seasons, through 1892. Students often learned of the championship victories via telegraph, fired the cannon off University Hill, and organized a torchlight parade to meet the team at the downtown railroad depot. The parade resumed back to campus, with players hosted on students’ shoulders. The celebration passed Ladies Hall and the UW president’s house and lasted until the wee hours of the morning. Wisconsin remained competitive through the 1890s but allegations of athletes participating as professionals resulted in Big Ten teams refusing to play the Badgers in 1898. The 1899 squad disbanded coach Phil King publicly pleaded for recruits in 1900. He succeeded and UW finished third (PHOTO). Former pitcher Oscar Bandelin coached the Badgers to their first Western Conference (Big Ten) title in 1902. The stars were two African-Americans, pitcher Adelbert Mathews and first baseman Julian Ware. Mathews was the grandson of salves brought to Camp Randall during the Civil War and later played Negro League baseball. Ware became the first African-American captain in 1903. (TEAM PHOTO BELOW). Baseball continued until 1906 when a revenue shortage from the cancellation of football games with Minnesota and Chicago resulted in baseball becoming an inter-class sport only. The team returned in 1907 and made an unprecedented trip to Japan in the fall of 1909 to play university teams from Keio and Waseda. The book includes three primary source accounts from ballplayers recounting their experiences. Some players also wrote senior papers about the trip, which began on August 20. The team returned to a hero’s welcome at the Armory Gymnasium on November 1. In 1911, Waseda visited Camp Randall and the Badgers won two of three games. (PHOTO BELOW). The Badgers won the 1912 Western Conference title with help from footballers Eddie Gillette (shown) and Keckie Moll. The football and basketball teams also won championships that year. The Badgers started playing at Camp Randall diamond north of the football stadium in 1914 and would host most of their games there through 1948. World War I saw coaches and players go to war and the conference baseball schedule cancelled for 1917 in favor of military training at the Armory Gymnasium. The Red Gym annex (PHOTO) was also the place the baseball team held pre-season practice. Teams later used the UW Field House, Camp Randall Memorial Shell and the McClain Center for indoor practice. The photo below shows military trainees in the gym annex. Wisconsin emerged from the war with all sports operating at full throttle. In 1921, Guy S. Lowman took over the baseball team and served as head coach through 1932, winning the 1930 Western Conference title. (TEAM PHOTO NEXT PAGE) The Depression threatened intercollegiate athletics and some nonrevenue sports were dropped. Baseball survived and coaches Irv Uteritz and John Falk “Bobby” Poser kept their squads competitive. When Poser left to finish medical school following brief major league stops with the White Sox and St. Louis Browns (photo), Lowell “Fuzzy” Douglas coached UW for the next three seasons. Pitcher Bob Henrichs is with Douglas in photo below. Mansfield had coached the freshman team for Douglas and took the head coaching job in 1940 and won 441 games in 31 seasons. When veteran players returned from the service and the Big Nine allowed freshman to play, Mansfield put together a champion in 1946. Gene Jaroch (next photo) had a 6-0 conference record and Howard Boese played center field. Basketball players Bob Cook and Glen anchored the left side of the infield and reserves included Charles “Chick” Lowe (with Jaroch ) and Gene Calhoun. When Mansfield’s 1947-48 youngsters became seniors in 1950, Wisconsin tied Michigan for the Western title and earned a College World Series berth playing at Breese Stevens Field with its notorious short right field fence. They swept two game series from the Wolverines and Minnesota Gophers and defeated Michigan State in the District 4 playoffs. The Badgers’ bulldog was 6’ 3” right hander Thornton Kipper (below left) won 11 games, including two in the College World Series. Catcher Robert “Red” Wilson batted .426 and stole 17 bases. The Badgers finished fourth, losing twice to Rutgers. Kipper is at left at practice session and Evans takes the first pitch of the Badgers’ first game at Omaha. Catcher Robert “Red”Wilson. Wisconsin’s next playoff team just missed Omaha in 1952. Wisconsin Lutheran classmates pitcher Ron Unke and shortstop Harvey Kuenn (below) led the Badgers to the NCAA District Four playoffs but they lost to Western Michigan when the deciding game was rained out and the Broncos had won the first game. Kuenn led the Big Ten in batting, triples and stolen bases and signed with the Detroit Tigers after the season. Unke below right) pitched a no-hitter in 1953, won team MVP honors and signed with the Cardinals’ minor league Columbus Redbirds. The Badgers won eight straight in 1954 and missed the Big Ten title by a half-game. Michigan State’s Billy Mansfield saved the Spartans’ final victory and the team went to the College World Series. After the season, UW athletic director Guy Sundt talked of a new Guy Lowman Field complete with a grandstand and other amenities. He died in March 1955 and new athletic director Ivy Williamson supervised three expansions of Camp Randall Stadium but no baseball improvements. In 1956, a flip of a coin got john DeMerit on the Badgers’ traveling squad to the Florida State tournament. By season’s end, DeMerit had 12 home runs, 37 RBI and a team MVP award and the Badgers won 20 games for the first time. While in Florida, the Badgers and Seminoles went on a joint fishing trip. The following year, DeMerit signed with the Milwaukee Braves. The rest of the 1950s produced winning teams but no champions. The next one to have a shot was the 1962 club with Ron Krohn, Rick Reichardt and Pat Richter. The Badgers swept eventual national champion Michigan in a doubleheader in which Richter homered in each game and pitcher Stan Wagner won both games. A plea from the press box avoided a post-game brawl. Wisconsin also missed the NCAA tourney when the department would not make up a rain-out with Northwestern when a victory meant post-season play. PHOTO BELOW: From left, Pat Richter, Ron Krohn, Dave Tymus and Stan Wagner of the 1962 Badgers, at the 2010 W Club golf outing. Reichardt was the National Player of the Year in 1964. He won the second of two straight Big Ten batting titles and signed with the Los Angeles Angels for the largest rookie contract ever at the time. The teams of the later 1960s got strong pitching from Lance Tobert, John Poser and Lance Primis, setting an eRA record of 2.59 in 1968. The book talks about the Arizona spring trips when Reggie Jackson belted long home runs and Wisconsin won games that prompted ASU coaches to have the team run gut-wrenching sprints after the game. Mansfield’s final season of 1970 produced 22 wins including a season-ending sweep at Indiana to clinch a winning conference record. PHOTO: Assistant Fred “Fritz” Wegner (left) and coach Arthur “Dynie” Mansfield. Tom Meyer took over as Badger coach in 1971. The Badgers beat Minnesota twice in a doubleheader in which pitcher Lon Galli, on his way to a second team MVP award, got two hits and beat future Baseball Hall of Famer Dave Winfield. The early ‘70s were about the top four hitters in Meyer’s batting order. Lee Bauman, Steve Ploetz, Steve Bennett and Duane Gustavson set school records for hitting and base stealing. Bennett led the nation in doubles in 1974. The 1975 club added pitcher Andy Otting, the all-time leader in wins, and the Badgers had a 9-3 mark playing as a road team because Guy Lowman Field was unplayable. A composite slump knocked them down to fourth with a 9-9 record. The book discusses the 1979 squad that led the Big Ten in wins (13) but did not make the NCAA playoffs by .22222222222 percent. Wisconsin had won 31 games overall but other teams got berths despite UW’s second place finish after a double win over Ohio State. The players recall the exciting season and the disappointment. The Badgers never won that many games under Meyer again and Steve Land took over as coach in 1984. Land’s 1986 team made the Big Ten tournament because of strong pitching from future pros Tom Fischer (below), Lance Painter, Paul Quantrill and a one-year wonder closer Jim Rosplock. The Badgers led Michigan 11-4, when relief pitching imploded and the Wolverines came back to win. The 1987 team had virtually the same cast but the tough luck continued. The 1988 squad, the last UW team to have a shot at the post-season but Minnesota won all four games. The last three seasons were Land’s only losing campaigns. Worse yet, a Title IX complaint had been filed against the University for Noncompliance with gender equity standards on athletic teams. A sorry football program also created a department deficit forced sports cuts in 1991. Players recall being assured that baseball would not be cut. But as Wisconsin played its final season, the recommendations to drop baseball, initially a motivator for some players, hung over the sport like the familiar April rain clouds at Guy Lowman Field. The book outlines proposed budget solutions in detail and includes retrospective interviews with key figures on both sides of the baseball question. The chronology not only digs deeper into the issues mentioned but describes the almost constant search for adequate facilities and coping with inclement weather. The baseball team once played inside Camp Randall where players hit home runs into the wooden stands. They also played on the lower campus across from the Red Gym before Camp Randall diamond became the home field through 1948. Breese Stevens Field hosted night game beginning in the 1930s and was the home field for the Badgers from 1949 to 1951 when a new engineering building sprouted on Camp Randall diamond. The university opened Guy Lowman Field in 1952. In 1975, a land swap put a new Guy Lowman Field in a marsh behind Nielsen Tennis Stadium. Any rain at all could make the field unplayable. Players participated in pre-season workouts in the Red Gym annex, the UW Field House, the Camp Randall Memorial Shell, and the McClain Center. Over more than 100 years, players said indoor facilities were of immeasurable help to their teams. Despite all the obstacles , the Badger program kept doing its best with quality people for 117 seasons, a great accomplishment in itself. The book includes a records section and Badgers in the major leagues and those drafted as free agents.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 18:18:58 +0000