Historic 1969 TU Baseball team holds 50-year reunion

In the year of the major stories, like man walking on the moon for the first time, and the Jets and the Mets winning it all in football and baseball, perhaps none was more improbable than TU almost winning the College World Series in 1969.

With mostly Tulsa Public Schools players, the greatest men’s sports team in TU history, the 1969 Tulsa baseball team, was laughing and joking together once again during its 50-year reunion on June 29.

It was a scene that makes it hard to believe 50 years have passed since their incredible run in the 1969 College World Series that saw those Golden Hurricane finish second in the nation, just one win away from winning the national championship.

“Making it that far is a tribute to all of those kids with dreams,” said third baseman Les Rogers, a McLain graduate. “It was probably the most exciting thing that I was ever around. What made it that way was not only our coach, but our team. Our team, where we came from, a little ol’ school, the University of Tulsa, in the limelight. It was something I’ll never forget.”

Rogers hit third in the lineup and was a first-team All-American on that 1969 team while hitting over .400. His unlikely journey to TU is a great story, just like the entire story of the 1969 team that was coached by the great Gene Shell.

The fact that 12 of 20 players on the College World Series roster came from the Tulsa Public Schools teams of McLain (3), Hale (5), Webster (2) and Memorial (2) is an incredible feat. But there were others, like the great Steve Rogers, who were not from Tulsa, but not too far away, either.

Back to Les Rogers (no relation to Steve). An absolutely amazing three-sport star for McLain in football, basketball and baseball (leading the Scots to the 1967 state title), Rogers was probably headed to professional baseball out of high school if not for a debilitating shoulder injury he suffered while running into a catcher.

Rogers also had several offers to play college football with big-time programs. But all that changed with the injury which caused him to sit out his entire freshman year and go through a painful, intense rehab process.

“You can see now how it was a blessing for me because I didn‘t know if I was going to be able to really play any more or have any real success any more,” Rogers said of his success at TU. “TU took a big chance. Coach Shell as well as coach Dobbs, because my original scholarship was football.

“It took a lot of hard work because I started out with a little, three-ounce weight, making circles with my arm. I tore the collarbone, separated it, and they had to take tissue from my chest to put the collarbone and the shoulder bone back together, and then they pinned it. And eventually they got to take the pins out. It changed the way I threw the ball. I probably didn’t have as a good of an arm as I had before.

Having signed with legendary Glenn Dobbs on a football scholarship, Rogers was planning to play both football and baseball. But when Dobbs quit to focus on Athletic Director duties after the 1968 season, and new coach Vince Carillot wanted to make Rogers a blocking fullback, it was time to concentrate solely on baseball.

Not to mention that Rogers was coming off an All-American baseball season for the 1969 team. After a three-year career where TU finished third in the College World Series in 1971, it was time for pro baseball in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ organization.

Another injury, however, after two years of pro ball ended his baseball career, and then it was on to a 30-year career working at fire departments.

“What’s really amazing is all these guys played against each other coming up, and we gelled,” Rogers said. “Coach Shell gelled us into a team. He got that many good athletes in one place.”

Starting left fielder Roger Whitaker, a .339 hitter, as well as right fielder/first baseman Larry Byrd, a .371 hitter, and Rogers (.418), were all McLain teammates as well. Whitaker organized the reunion, which was originally scheduled to take place at his house, but was then moved to the ONEOK suite at H.A. Chapman Stadium because so many people were attending.

Around 100 people, including 14 of the 1969 players, as well as Shell, were in attendance, as were 33 players from other TU teams like former major leaguers Steve Bowling and Mark Calvert. All but one player from the 1969 team is still alive. Webster product Pat Carleton passed away within the last year.

Whitaker turned down an offer to play in the Philadelphia Phillies’ organization after TU since he had just been married for a couple of weeks, and had a good job with American Airlines.

As the leadoff hitter who made Tulsa’s offense go, Whitaker had several memorable clutch moments. His one-out, bases loaded walk-off single in the bottom of the 10th inning to win 6-5 against UCLA in the first game of the College World Series was critical, to say the least.

But perhaps even more memorable was Whitaker’s three-run homer in Tulsa's victory over Texas in a second game 4-2 victory. The homer was off James Street, who came into the game with a 12-1 record. Street is better known as the starting quarterback later that year for the national champion Longhorns football team.

The homer was poetic justice for Whitaker and TU, who had been insulted on an elevator ride while staying in the same hotel in Omaha. While exchanging barbs with the Longhorns, Street looked at Whitaker and said, “Who are you, the batboy?”

So when Whitaker was rounding the bases after his homer, he yelled at Street, “Yeah, that’s right, buddy. I’m the batboy!”

Another hero of the 1969 Golden Hurricane, Tim Rector, who still works and lives in Tulsa, was just one of two seniors on the team. He was also one of five Hale grads, all starters, including second baseman Roger Adams, catcher Roger Klahr, center fielder Tom Jenkins, and standout pitcher Cliff Butcher.

Without Rector’s heroics in a best-of-three series at Oiler Park in the Missouri Valley Conference championship series against Cincinnati, there would have been no big celebration of the 1969 team. A part-time starter in right field, Rector was a clutch pinch-hitter.

Tulsa had lost the first game and won the second game of the series against the Bearcats, and were down 7-2 early. The automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, the only way for college conference members to go to the NCAA Tournament at that time, was not looking good.

But TU had whittled the lead down to 7-6 with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning when first baseman Steve Caves was scheduled to hit. Relying on a gut feeling, Shell rolled the dice with the left-handed hitting Rector.

What followed was a grand slam homer that put TU up 10-7 in a game that the Golden Hurricane held on to win 10-9.

“Honestly, when coach called Steve back and he hollered at me to get a bat and get ready, it sounds crazy, but it was of those deals that it was meant to be,” Rector said. “When the time came, I just felt an inner peace. I had been watching their pitcher warm up, and all he was throwing was fast balls.

“I wasn’t really all that great of a hitter, but fast balls were what I was looking for, and the old man upstairs was watching over me, and it was right there. I really thought I popped it up when I first hit it, I really did.

"I didn’t know it went over until I heard people screaming.”

The shot wouldn’t have been a homer if his former Hale teammate Adams hadn’t bailed him out.

“Roger Adams was on first base, and when I heard all the screams and realized what had happened I almost passed him,” said Rector, whose homer would have been turned into a single. “He had to grab me and pull me back, and then I followed him all the way around.

“That hit was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I was very lucky, very fortunate. I’ll never forget it. It is something that will be with me the rest of my life.”

Another memorable thing about the game was how Shell, who had been an assistant football coach the previous four years, got his football players to sit behind the Cincinnati dugout and continually harass them all game.

“I was watching the football team over there giving the Cincinnati team all kinds of heck,” said Rector. “You would have had to have been there to appreciate that.”

The next game was two weeks later, and was another thriller, with Rector again coming through in the clutch. Tulsa hosted Big 8 Champion OSU at Oiler Park in a best-of-three series in the District 5 Playoffs of the NCAA Tournament, with the winner advancing to the College World Series.

After a leadoff single in the bottom 13th inning by Adams, Webster graduate Caves was intentionally walked. That brought up Rector, who wasted no time, singling on the first pitch to center field to score Adams to end the three hour and 40 minute contest with a 5-4 victory. Another TU victory, this one 8-4, followed in the next game, and Tulsa was in the College World Series after sweeping OSU.

The first round 6-5 victory over UCLA followed, as did a masterpiece of a pitching performance by Steve Rogers against the Longhorns in the second game of the College World Series. Rogers had a no-hitter going into the seventh inning on two days rest after being the winning pitcher in game one due to finishing the final two innings of the UCLA game in relief.

Rogers gave way to Butcher in the eighth inning, who had started the first game. Butcher was able to finish off the Longhorns in the 4-2 win. Although it wasn’t easy.

After walking a couple of batters to get in a jam in the ninth inning, Shell looked mortified according to star shortstop Phil Honeycutt, when Shell heard Butcher’s response of, “Awe hell, coach, it just makes it more exciting.”

Then came a 2-0 victory over New York University where Memorial grads Reg Rowe and Jay Weinheimer combined for a shutout. Unfortunately, an 11-3 loss to Arizona State followed. In the double-elimination CWS, that left NYU, Arizona State and Tulsa as the only teams left with a loss apiece. A tie-breaker determined who got a bye to the championship game, where each team was given an envelope.

Tulsa got the envelope with the bye on it, and it was in the championship game against with winner of ASU and NYU. Facing future MLB All-Star Larry Gura, Tulsa was tied 1-1 when ASU broke open the game with thee runs in the bottom of the third off of Rogers in a 10-1 loss that gave Arizona State the title.

Although the incredible run was over for TU, the 39-5 Golden Hurricane, who at one time had a 21-game winning streak, was greeted with a parade at home. It was a great ride for everyone, including Steve Rogers, whose experience as a Golden Hurricane propelled him to an incredible pro baseball career.

Going to the College World Series with TU in both 1969 and 1971 (third place), Steve Rogers then embarked on an very successful 13-year major league career from 1973-1985, all with the Montreal Expos. A first-round draft pick, fourth overall, Rogers was Rookie of the Year in 1973 and was 158-152 with a 3.17 ERA while being a five-time MLB All-Star.

“There is no doubt that being on that stage and having the opportunity to pitch in four games in the College World Series over two stints, that certainly helped me get over the jitters of big games,” said Rogers. “I do believe that if you’re not nervous, then it doesn’t mean enough to you.

“So having nerves is one thing, having them shut you down, that I learned to get over it. Didn’t mean I wasn’t nervous before games in the post season or big games during the season during my professional career. It was nervousness, it was excitement. It wasn’t debilitating nerves.”

The excitement of his TU career is something that Rogers will always cherish. It led to what he called the greatest stretch of his career, with a two-hitter on the second to last day of the 1981 regular season. That was followed by winning three consecutive playoff games for the Expos.

Rogers beat Hall of Famer Steve Carlton twice in the division series, then beat Jerry Reuss in the National League Championship series. He also started in 1982 at Olympic Stadium and got the win in that game in front of his home crowd in Montreal.

“The thrill is progressive. My college career was the very top of the top that I had experienced,” Rogers said. “Being able to have gone to the College World Series, twice, to be heavily involved in the success of the team while there, that ranks right up there with the success at the major league level because it’s all progressive. The thrill at the time it happened is equivalent.”

The fact that Rogers even came to TU out of Springfield, Missouri is in great part due to a major league scout who is considered to be one of the greatest scouts of all time.

Tom Greenwade, the longtime scout for the New York Yankees, was living close to Springfield in his hometown of Willard, Missouri, and he knew talent when he saw it. He signed Oklahomans Mickey Mantle and Bobby Murcer for the New York Yankees, as well as recommending Jackie Robinson, while working for the Brooklyn Dodgers, be signed as the first black player in the major leagues.

Greenwade knew about Rogers as well.

“I was pitching American Legion high school baseball in Springfield, Missouri. We had the luxury in Springfield, Missouri of having four, five, six area scouts for major organizations, one of which was the Tom Greenwade,” Rogers said. “He watched a lot of my games and sat next to my dad, and he told my dad that they were going to draft me out of high school, and my dad said, ‘Well, he’s not going to sign, he’s not ready,’ and I wasn’t.

“So they did draft me very late in the draft, and I didn’t sign, and so my dad went back to him, and Greenwade said, ‘I could probably get you down to Arizona State, and you’d be one of 40 pitchers they’ve got, whether you make the team or not. I would much rather you have a good experience, and I owe a coach down there at the University of Tulsa a favor. Whatever that was, I don’t know.

“So it was on his recommendation that I pitched a game that coach (Shell) came to see. I pitched against Bartlesville in the fourth of July tournament, and stunk it up, because coach was in the stands. Rumor has it that coach Shell, and he’s told me, he called Tom Greenwade, and he said, ‘Are you sure?’ And Greenwade said, 'No, no, he may have had a bad game, but I’m sure.’ And he went ahead and offered me the scholarship.”

By 1969, Rogers was ready for prime time. He went 8-1, and the Golden Hurricane had the best three year stretch in TU men’s sports history. Rogers was one of the few non-Oklahomans on the team.

Besides the 12 players from Tulsa Public Schools, three other Oklahomans included slick fielding shortstop Phil Honeycutt from Shawnee, who also was a .400 hitter going into the NCAA tourney. Outfielder/catcher Bob Murphy was from Midwest City. Pitcher Steve Chrisman was from OKC John Marshall.

Besides Steve Rogers, four other players who weren’t from Oklahoma were infielder Jim Silvey from St. Louis, pitcher Jim Blackburn from Dallas - the only other senior beside Rector, pitcher Vince Shawyer from Shawnee Mission, Kansas, and catcher Craig Bothwell was from Springfield.

Having 15 of 20 players from Oklahoma as well as all of the other players coming from surrounding states, was a key element that tied together the 1969 Golden Hurricane baseball team.

“Besides my teammates in high school, these were guys we played against, and all of a sudden you’re playing with these guys,” Rector said. “And all of a sudden, at one time you were enemies, and now you’re best friends.

“We’re a band of brothers. We’re still as close today as when we played for the national championship. We’re just real close, and I don’t think that will ever change.”