Potential comeback would be program’s third time on campus

The subject of baseball has been causing quite a stir among students, faculty and staff as its return to campus appears more and more likely.

The program does have a storied history, but not in the same sense as the basketball or football programs. If baseball does eventually make a return to campus, it will be its third incarnation in school history.

The first time collegiate baseball was played in Wichita Falls was in 1946 when MSU was known simply as Midwestern University.

How long the first program lasted is debatable. Some documents, including those held in the athletics office, claim the program died out in the early 1950s before quickly being resurrected by the middle of the decade.

Others, including former Wichita Times & Record News editor and player on the 1960 squad Ted Buss, claim  the program’s first run lasted from 1946-1960 until a tragic car accident injured six players and their coach in the team van en route to a game against Dallas Baptist University towards the beginning of their season.

“From our vehicle behind, it was like watching a movie scene unfold,” Buss said in a March 22 editorial he submitted to the Wichita Falls Times Record News. “Numerous broken bones, facial lacerations, a couple of back injuries and considerable blood took its toll. At a time when there wasn’t a seat belt law, it still seems unimaginable that nobody died.”

The April 13, 1960 issue of The Wichitan gave brief coverage to the accident, citing that while injured, none of the players were seriously hurt.

In that same issue, reporting on the board of directors’ full support of athletic programs, an article announced baseball would be discontinued in the spring due to difficulties in scheduling games. This discontinuation lasted until 1974 when baseball was reinstated on campus after months of community support and deliberation.

According to a March 8, 1974 issue of the Wichita Falls Record News, $5,000 was raised to help reinstitute the team that year.

There was a catch to the reinstatement, however. In the Feb. 12, 1978 issue of the Wichita Falls Times, then Athletic Director and Men’s Head Basketball Coach Gerald Stockton was quoted in an article written by Buss titled “Will baseball ever make ‘cents’ at MSU?” arguing for discontinuation of the program again due to the sport’s failure to draw a crowd, as well as the booster club’s inability to raise funds.

“The promise at that meeting was that if we would keep baseball for three years, then they would raise $5,000 the first year, $10,000 the next and $15,000 the third year,” Stockton said. “They first year we raised about $4,200 and since then baseball boosters have been pretty hard to track down.”

In Buss’ article, he said a typical game at Hoskins Field for the Indians consisted of 50 players and 35 fans. Buss also cited the effect that Title IX had on the university’s expenses as a possible reason that 1978 could have been the last year baseball was played on campus.

Buss ended his article saying, “Oh yes, and when you write be sure to enclose $20 to pay for the tickets. It is the only way baseball at Midwestern State is gonna live to see 1979,” after he quoted Stockton saying he would love nothing more than for 5,000 people to write him a letter asking for two season tickets to the university’s baseball games.

Despite all this, baseball somehow found a way to make it through 1978, 1979 and all the way to 1983, the last year baseball was ever played at MSU.

While financial issues persisted until the program’s last days, it was surprisingly not what laid the final nail in its coffin.

Instead, trouble with scheduling practices and games at Hoskins Fields around the schedules of the city’s high school teams, as well as the university’s decision to leave the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics to join the Division II ranks of the National Collegiate Athletics Association.

According to the Feb. 15, 1983 issue of The Wichitan, the university had to pick up five additional sports and have a total of six men’s teams and four women’s teams to join the NCAA.

While it was decided the university would offer men’s golf, men’s and women’s cross country and men’s and women’s rifle team, baseball and softball were dropped.

The article also cited the university estimating a cost of $200,000 to build its own field to avoid problems with Hoskins, and the discontinuation of both programs would result in an extra $50,000 for the basketball and soccer programs, the two more popular sports on campus.

In the end, the financial troubles and scheduling problems the baseball program suffered almost from its inception caused its downfall. With this in mind, it may be a good idea for the Board of Regents to look to baseball’s past before deciding if it’s worth the money and time to invest in baseball’s future.