VU Baseball Has Come A Long Way

For fan discussion of the Vanderbilt Commodore baseball program.

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VU1970
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VU Baseball Has Come A Long Way

Post by VU1970 »

Back in the Sixties, long before the Hawk, I sat on the grassy hill between home plate and the first base dugout to cheer the Commies on in an SEC game that was watched by about 15 other fans sitting mainly in the small section of bleachers behind the plate.

I’ve never seen the Hawk but I’m glad Coach Corbin’s team fills the seats.

Now I’m an elderly man living in western Canada. I listened to game 2 on the Vandy app in my car, and watched game 1 & 3 on ESPN, wearing my Vandy t-shirt. I followed the action in 2014 and 2015, too.

Don’t know how many more Vanderbilt championships I’ll get to watch from afar, but this one was really sweet.

Thanks, Vandy.


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Re: VU Baseball Has Come A Long Way

Post by DS2001 »

VU1970, glad you were able to watch and listen to the Commodores win another Baseball title. I also remember those days of the former baseball stadium and the hill on the 1st base side. That`s where I usually sat for games. I remember one afternoon a group of fraternity brothers brought a keg and proceeded to have a rousing afternoon of heckling the right fielder. Coach Schmittou didn`t seem to have any problems with that. From those days and long before, they always were and will be forever revered as the "VandyBoys"!
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Re: VU Baseball Has Come A Long Way

Post by Vandyfan22 »

Anyone got any old pictures of the stadium?
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Re: VU Baseball Has Come A Long Way

Post by frstev17 »

I was at VU in the mid 60s. There was no stadium per se. Games were played at McGugin Field (where the Hawk is now.) Outside of baseball season, it was the football practice field. As mentioned above, there were a few bleachers behind home plate, but what few students who attended sat on the hill down the first base/right field line. George Archie was the coach. He was an old timer who came from the old Nashville Vols, the city’s AA team until 1962. VU started being relevant when Larry Schmittou took over, I believe in the early 70s.
Yes, it has come a long, long way.
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Re: VU Baseball Has Come A Long Way

Post by VandyPhile »

I have memory from the early 70s of there being a big drainage culvert where the grass started behind the 1st to 2nd baseline and another behind 2nd to 3rd. But maybe I imagine that.
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Re: VU Baseball Has Come A Long Way

Post by SCSA »

I was there in the 80s and covered the team as part of my job with the sports department. There were bleachers behind home plate and along the baselines. Some fans brought folding lawn chairs and sat at the edge of the bleachers. People used to drink cans of beer and watch from the car parking lot behind the outfield wall. This was called the "beer garden", and we were told to count them amongst official attendance. The "press box" was a folding table and chairs above the first base dugout.
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Re: VU Baseball Has Come A Long Way

Post by admin »

SCSA wrote: Thu Jun 27, 2019 5:44 pm I was there in the 80s and covered the team as part of my job with the sports department. There were bleachers behind home plate and along the baselines. Some fans brought folding lawn chairs and sat at the edge of the bleachers. People used to drink cans of beer and watch from the car parking lot behind the outfield wall. This was called the "beer garden", and we were told to count them amongst official attendance. The "press box" was a folding table and chairs above the first base dugout.
SCSA,

Where specifically was home plate back then in relation to Memorial Gym and the football stadium?
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Re: VU Baseball Has Come A Long Way

Post by VandyPhile »

admin wrote: Thu Jun 27, 2019 8:51 pm
SCSA wrote: Thu Jun 27, 2019 5:44 pm I was there in the 80s and covered the team as part of my job with the sports department. There were bleachers behind home plate and along the baselines. Some fans brought folding lawn chairs and sat at the edge of the bleachers. People used to drink cans of beer and watch from the car parking lot behind the outfield wall. This was called the "beer garden", and we were told to count them amongst official attendance. The "press box" was a folding table and chairs above the first base dugout.
SCSA,

Where specifically was home plate back then in relation to Memorial Gym and the football stadium?
It was the same orientation as now, back in the 70s.
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Re: VU Baseball Has Come A Long Way

Post by frstev17 »

And same for the 60s as well.
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Re: VU Baseball Has Come A Long Way

Post by SCSA »

admin wrote: Thu Jun 27, 2019 8:51 pm
SCSA wrote: Thu Jun 27, 2019 5:44 pm I was there in the 80s and covered the team as part of my job with the sports department. There were bleachers behind home plate and along the baselines. Some fans brought folding lawn chairs and sat at the edge of the bleachers. People used to drink cans of beer and watch from the car parking lot behind the outfield wall. This was called the "beer garden", and we were told to count them amongst official attendance. The "press box" was a folding table and chairs above the first base dugout.
SCSA,

Where specifically was home plate back then in relation to Memorial Gym and the football stadium?
The diamond was laid out basically the same as it is now.
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Re: VU Baseball Has Come A Long Way

Post by charlestonalum »

JR at CWS.jpg
JR at CWS.jpg (3.7 MiB) Viewed 9144 times
I was there '61-'65 and had several friends who played on the baseball team as we played on the tennis team. What I recall most fondly is on days when we had a match when they had a game, they had way more fans (~50) than we did (with good reason - including the beer), but to the point things have really changed for the better including the facilities and the athletes - but the biggest change for me is I got to be in Omaha and to wear a baseball look-alike pen stripe for the CWS. That was unimaginable in the early '60s.
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Re: VU Baseball Has Come A Long Way

Post by KarenYates »

charlestonalum wrote: Fri Jun 28, 2019 7:39 am JR at CWS.jpgI was there '61-'65 and had several friends who played on the baseball team as we played on the tennis team. What I recall most fondly is on days when we had a match when they had a game, they had way more fans (~50) than we did (with good reason - including the beer), but to the point things have really changed for the better including the facilities and the athletes - but the biggest change for me is I got to be in Omaha and to wear a baseball look-alike pen stripe for the CWS. That was unimaginable in the early '60s.
Love your smile. What a great experience for a Vandy fan!
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Re: VU Baseball Has Come A Long Way

Post by Ndorefin »

Schmittou became the coach in 1968 and always seemed to have some flame throwers: Elliott Jones (1971) Doug Wessell (struck out 23 hitters in one game in 1970), Mike Willis, and Jeff Peeples. In 1971, Jones, Willis and Wessell were our pitchers and in 1972, Peeples replaced Jones. The SEC was divided into divisions at that time and VU won 4 consecutive division titles from 71-74 and 2 consecutive SEC titles in 73 and 74. After Scmittou retired in 1978, VU baseball took a nosedive until Corbin arrived.
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Re: VU Baseball Has Come A Long Way

Post by StarTraveler »

Coach Mewbourne had a few good seasons and ended up with a winning record by a few games over all those years, but never could build sustained success or get all that much support from McGugin. I don't remember all that much student support when I was there in the early to mid 80s either.
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Re: VU Baseball Has Come A Long Way

Post by UVaJD »

This nostalgia and the spectacular team this year finally motivated me to register. I fondly remember many, many afternoons on that grassy hill by first base. I am from Nashville and my attendance at the games started in high school. Steve Burger was from my high school two years ahead of me and I followed his athletic career at VU in football and baseball. In early 1971 Tennessee lowered the drinking and voting age to 18, just when I turned 18. That was a game changer for for students on that grassy hill. The beer flowed even more freely from that point until my graduation in 1975.There was an infamous incident when a fan hit an opposing player with a can of beer -- Mississippi State sticks in my mind. Far and away the most vivid memories come from the abuse of the UUT players and coaches. There was one player in particular who was a loudmouth braggart. Roger McKinney. We would really get under his skin by singing this to the Oscar Meyer jingle tune: "Oh, I wish I was a Roger McKinney hot dog; that is what I truly want to be; for if I was a Roger McKinney hot dog; I'd be one hulluvan obnoxious sob." I found this blurb from a quickie internet search: http://hhsterriers.com/fame/roger-mckinney/

I also remember an NCAA appearance against NC State, whose ace pitcher was Tim Stoddard who was also on the David Thompson basketball team that won the NCAA title.

Congratulations to the Vandy Boys and Coach Corbin. Hoping this is the second of many more. As one of the ESPN commentators put it, Vandy is the Alabama of college baseball. We have definitely come a long way.

All my suffering as a fan of traditionally weak alma mater sports teams had an unbelievable double payoff this year. UVa's basketball title. Two of three major sports! As a footnote, VU's win this year was more enjoyable as I was not even slightly conflicted.
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Re: VU Baseball Has Come A Long Way

Post by admin »

UVaJD wrote: Fri Jun 28, 2019 1:43 pm This nostalgia and the spectacular team this year finally motivated me to register. I fondly remember many, many afternoons on that grassy hill by first base. I am from Nashville and my attendance at the games started in high school. Steve Burger was from my high school two years ahead of me and I followed his athletic career at VU in football and baseball. In early 1971 Tennessee lowered the drinking and voting age to 18, just when I turned 18. That was a game changer for for students on that grassy hill. The beer flowed even more freely from that point until my graduation in 1975.There was an infamous incident when a fan hit an opposing player with a can of beer -- Mississippi State sticks in my mind. Far and away the most vivid memories come from the abuse of the UUT players and coaches. There was one player in particular who was a loudmouth braggart. Roger McKinney. We would really get under his skin by singing this to the Oscar Meyer jingle tune: "Oh, I wish I was a Roger McKinney hot dog; that is what I truly want to be; for if I was a Roger McKinney hot dog; I'd be one hulluvan obnoxious sob." I found this blurb from a quickie internet search: http://hhsterriers.com/fame/roger-mckinney/

I also remember an NCAA appearance against NC State, whose ace pitcher was Tim Stoddard who was also on the David Thompson basketball team that won the NCAA title.

Congratulations to the Vandy Boys and Coach Corbin. Hoping this is the second of many more. As one of the ESPN commentators put it, Vandy is the Alabama of college baseball. We have definitely come a long way.

All my suffering as a fan of traditionally weak alma mater sports teams had an unbelievable double payoff this year. UVa's basketball title. Two of three major sports! As a footnote, VU's win this year was more enjoyable as I was not even slightly conflicted.
Thanks for joining us UVaJD here in the Vanderbilt forums. Enjoyed reading your post.
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Re: VU Baseball Has Come A Long Way

Post by DoreZag »

Call me crazy but I think I remember sitting on top of that Memorial Gym overhang near left field back in the early 80's. Anyone else recall doing that? Or maybe I just climbed up there after a few beers and then was told to come down. Yes, back in the days of a drinking age of 18. Speaking of bringing a keg, one of my fondest memories is bringing a keg into Memorial on the day we got our housing assignments for the upcoming year. At least 20 points to get into a Carmichael suite?
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Post by geeznotagain »

DoreZag wrote: Fri Jun 28, 2019 6:13 pm Call me crazy but I think I remember sitting on top of that Memorial Gym overhang near left field back in the early 80's. Anyone else recall doing that? Or maybe I just climbed up there after a few beers and then was told to come down. Yes, back in the days of a drinking age of 18. Speaking of bringing a keg, one of my fondest memories is bringing a keg into Memorial on the day we got our housing assignments for the upcoming year. At least 20 points to get into a Carmichael suite?

Did it matter? When I was at Vandy (69 grad) the drinking age was 21, but there were at least a couple of liquor stores near the campus where it absolutely did not matter (there may have been more). I began my freshman year at the age of 17, and learned quickly from VU veterans where to go. I never had a fake ID and I was never carded. Ever. And everyone on campus (I thought) was aware of this; it wasn't like I or my frat brothers knew some "secret place". I also assumed the university knew about this (including the underage drinking that occurred at frat parties and elsewhere) but chose to look the other way.
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Re: VU Baseball Has Come A Long Way

Post by UVaJD »

Mrs. Mize!
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Post by DS2001 »

UVaJD, loved your ruminations about the 70’s and McGugin field. There were frequent keg parties on that 1st base “grassy knoll”. Schmittou had the VandyBoys going in the mid 70s with a couple of SEC titles and some legendary players. It was fun watching VU baseball back in those days.
They’re going to be imploding one of the Carmichael Towers on July 27th to make way for a new dorm complex. You probably lived in one of those during your undergrad days. It’ll be streamed live on the internet. Great Memories. Don’t be a stranger to the board. Anchor Down!
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