Diamond Hornets’ Tallahassee trip elicits 1974 memories
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (bamastatesports.com) – While the 2016 Alabama State University baseball team is making history as the first Hornet team to ever win the Southwestern Athletic Conference Baseball Tournament and earn the automatic invitation to the NCAA Regionals, they’re not the first ASU baseball team to play in an NCAA tournament.
That distinction belongs to the head coach Herbert Wheeler’s 1974 squad, which earned an at-large invitation to the NCAA Division II Regionals in New Orleans.
“There were good athletes on that team, but if they had the work ethic of this year’s team?” said longtime ASU coach Larry Watkins, a graduate assistant coach on the 1974 team. “I’m not trying to take anything away from them, but this (2016) team practices so much more.”
Ray Adams arrived on a baseball scholarship, but by 1974 he was handling the stats of the baseball team. Thinking back on the older Hornet teams, he pointed out the facilities – which included a track through the outfield of Hornet Stadium – are drastically different for today’s team.
“That year, we had played Jacksonville State over in Hornet Stadium and beat them,” Adams recalled, “and the Jacksonville State coach (Rudy Abbott) recommended us to represent the South (Region). We felt like we had a good enough team to represent.”
The 1974 Hornets had plenty of talent, Watkins noted, but in those days players played multiple positions and multiple sports, which often limited their work ethic at one position.
Both local papers, the Montgomery Advertiser and the Alabama Journal, dedicated little more than four inches of copy to the historic event, burying it on the back pages of the sports section.
The Hornets were one of four teams in the tournament, joining the University of New Orleans (recently renamed from LSU-New Orleans), Maryville College and Nicholls State University.
In the opening round, Terry Kieffer hurled a two-hitter to lead New Orleans to an easy 15-0 victory over an Alabama State squad that committed six errors. Left-handed ace Robert Davis held New Orleans in check for much of the game after surrendering a run in the first inning. The Hornets trailed 2-0 entering the bottom of the seventh when an eight-run explosion sent them to the loser’s bracket of the tournament.
Mark Frank had a double in the first inning and William Evans singled in the ninth for Alabama State’s only hits.
“It’s totally different today,” Watkins said. “It was a good ballclub. We won some games, but when we got off into this big thing here, it was something we had never seen before. It was bigger than our imagination. Sometimes you get into something that big, you play it down. When it’s something that huge, you can’t play it down.”
“Robert Davis and Oneal (Hardman) were the two pitchers that (pitcher) was the only position they played,” Adams said. “Everyone else played multiple positions.”
The following day, a three-run third finished off the Hornets as David Spradlin held Alabama State (22-11) to just a trio of hits from Marcus McNear, Prince Arnold and Raymond White.
“We’ve got a close relationship,” Watkins said of his relationship with current head coach Mervyl Melendez, who represent only the third and fourth head coaches, respectively, in the history of the program. “He can call me any time, and I can call him. It’s seldom you see the former coach and the current coach with a relationship but that’s the way he is. He’s a good person. I tried, I couldn’t do it, but what his team has done is unbelievable.”
Several of those players, including Davis, Jessie Gaston and Johnson, are deceased. Others would go on to noteworthy careers after baseball. Arnold became the first African-American elected to a major office in Wilcox County when he became the sheriff in 1978, a position he held for 32 years before retiring. The detention center in the county is now named in his honor. White became a Hall of Fame basketball coach at Louisville High and later at Barbour County High after the schools in that county consolidated.
Several of those former stars, long since forgotten for their exploits on the diamond, will make their way to Tallahassee this weekend to cheer for the latest group of stars playing baseball at their alma mater.
“I’ve got to witness it,” Watkins said. “I’m proud of them. I just hope they can keep it going. Nobody can outwork these guys.”
