Cougar Baseball Cougar Record Book
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COUGAR BASEBALL COUGAR RECORD BOOK 1 2020 WASHINGTON STATE WSU HALL OF FAME Listed below are the 25 former baseball players/coaches who have been inducted into the Washington State Athletics Hall of Fame. RICK AUSTIN (2012) Rick Gerald Austin was born Oct. 27, 1946 in Seattle. He attended Lakes High School in Tacoma, Wash., where he competed in baseball, football and track. In 1968, he led the nation with 12 wins and tied a then-Washington State single-season record. His 1.10 ERA in 1968 is third all-time at WSU and his 1.33 mark in 1967 ranks fifth. He was a Pac-8 All-Star, a NCAA District First Team selection and a Second Team All-American in 1968. He was a first round pick of the Cleveland Indians in the June Secondary Phase of the MLB Draft in 1968. Austin spent part of four seasons in MLB, two with the Indians and two with the Milwaukee Brewers. He appeared in 89 games, including eight starts, winning four and saving six. BUCK BAILEY (1978) A WSU sports institution for 35 years, Buck came to the university as assistant football coach and became a legend as its colorful - and winning - head baseball coach. Played football and baseball at Texas A & M and Bethany College in West Virginia and was Captain of West team in the first East-West Shrine game in 1925. At WSU, Bailey’s baseball teams won 11 Northern Division pennants and were second 10 times. The 1950 team was runnerup for the NCAA title and Bailey’s Cougars were seventh nationally in 1956. Athlete-Coach of “Bailey’s Angels,” barnstorming basketball team made up of WSU sports greats which toured the Northwest and entertained thousands. Died in 1964. CHUCK “BOBO” BRAYTON (1982) Chuck “Bobo” Brayton, one of the winningest collegiate baseball coaches in NCAA history, and one of the most innovative and imagi- native leaders in the college game. A three-sport letterman at WSU and an All-American at shortstop for the Cougars in 1947, Brayton played on two Championship baseball teams at WSU and, beginning in 1965, coached the Cougars to an unprecedented 13 straight Northern Division pennants…retired after the 1994 season the winningest coach in WSU history and the fourth winningest NCAA Div. I baseball coach at the time of retirement…final record 1,162-523-8 (68.9%)…WSU baseball field, Bailey-Brayton Stadium, named after Brayton and his mentor Buck Bailey…baseball uniform number retired May, 2003. GORDON BRUNSWICK (2012) A three-sport athlete at Washington State, Gordon Brunswick earned a total of six letters with the Cougars, one in basketball under head coach Jack Friel (1949-50), two in football for coach Phil Sarboe (1947-48), and three in the sport he’s most known for, baseball, under coach Buck Bailey (1948-50). A native of Tacoma, Wash., Brunswick was an all-conference first baseman in 1948 and an all-conference outfielder in 1950. In his three seasons he hit .329 in 41 conference games, having his best season as a sophomore when he hit .462 in 11 league games. As a senior in 1950 the Cougars finished first in the PCC Northern Division with a 12-2 league mark and swept Stanford to advance to the first College World Series held at Omaha, Neb. The Cougars fell to Texas in the championship game, finishing as national runner-up with a 32-6 overall mark. Following the 1950 season Brunswick turned pro, spending five seasons in the minor leagues, includ- ing a short stint with AAA Seattle. In his final season, 1954, he signed with the New York Yankees and played for Modesto, San Francisco and the Tri-Cities. RON CEY (1982) Ron Cey, the famous “Penguin” of the Los Angeles Dodgers, began his climb to the Major Leagues as a third baseman for Washington State in 1967-68. Cey has played more games at third base for the Dodgers than any other Athlete in the club’s history and has set Major League records for runs batted in and home runs. He also tied a National League record for fewest errors by a third baseman and was named to the NL All-Star team six times in his first eight years with the Dodgers. 2 COUGAR BASEBALL WSU HALL OF FAME MARV CHAMBERLAIN (2016) Marv Chamberlain grew up dreaming of playing baseball at Washington State and fulfilled his dream, producing a record-setting career for the Cougars. The Longview, Wash. native remembers following WSU’s 1965 College World Series run where they finished third, but Chamberlain, a high school catcher at the time, made up his mind he was going to play for head coach Bobo Brayton and the Cougs. As a sophomore in 1972, Chamberlain led the Pac-8 Conference in hitting at a .415 clip followed with a junior campaign that saw him hit .345 in conference play and finish the year with a team-best 45 RBI. He capped his career in record-setting fashion, setting or tying 10 school records as a senior in 1974 while leading Washington State to a share of the Pac-8 Northern Division title. The utility man turned first baseman earned ABCA First-Team All-America, All-District and First-Team All-Pac-8 Conference honors after hitting .383 with 16 home runs along with school records for RBI (73) and total bases (127). He also became the first Cougar in program history to reach double- digits in both home runs and stolen bases (15) in the same season. Chamberlain left Washington State the all-time leader in games played (159), at-bats (494), hits (166), runs-batted-in (156), grand slams (3) and tied the record in doubles with 27. He was later selected in the eighth round of the 1974 Major League Baseball Draft by the Montreal Expos before receiving his bachelor’s degree in pharmacy. CLIFF CHAMBERS (1984) The highlight of an outstanding professional baseball career for Cliff Chambers was a 3-0 no-hit May 9, 1951, as Pittsburgh beat Boston in the second game of a double-header. His pro career included stops in Chicago, Pittsburgh and St. Louis, compiling a 48-53 record, 4.29 ERA in six seasons. His best seasons were 13-7 with Pittsburgh in ‘49, and a combined 14-12 in 1951 with Pittsburgh and St. Louis (11-6 that year after being traded to St. Louis). He posted an 11-5 career mark at WSU in 1941-42, completing 12 of 18 starts, including nine of 10 in 1942. He posted three shutouts. At the plate, Chambers hit .354 overall and .444 in league play in 1944. He also spent two outstanding years in the minor leagues, including a 28-8 record for Los Angeles in 1947 when he won the strikeout title and was a two-time Pacific Coast League All-Star pick. GENE CONLEY (1979) Gene Conley is one of a few persons in sports history to play on two world championship teams - in different sports. Conley spent two years on the Washington State University campus and played on championship basketball and baseball teams. He later played on the Boston Celtics’ world championship teams of 1959, 1960 and 1961, and was a pitcher on the Milwaukee Braves team that won the World Series in 1957. At WSU, Conley played center on Coach Jack Friel’s championship basketball team of 1950, and he pitched for Coach Buck Bailey’s 1950 Cougar team that won the Northern Division and District Eight and finished second in the College World Series. PETE DUNCAN (2012) Born Sept. 7, 1948 in Victoria, British Columbia, Peter James Duncan became the first Canadian named to the NCAA All-American team when he was selected as a third baseman in 1970. That season, he led the Pac-8 with a .423 batting average in conference games and a .379 mark overall while tying a then-WSU record for hits with 58. Duncan was named Pac-8 and NCAA District 8 First Team in 1970. The Cougars won the Pac-8 in 1970, and Duncan was honored as the team’s Most Inspirational Player. He made seven relief appearances in his Cougar career and, after spending one season at third base in the Kansas City Royals’ organization, he was converted to a full-time pitcher. He spent four seasons in the minor leagues as a hurler where he was 28-18 with a 2.54 ERA in 407 innings. WILLIAM FALLER (2012) William “Butch” Don Faller was born April 14, 1925 in Mount Vernon, Wash. He played second base for Washington State in 1947 and batted .262 in 13 conference games. In 1948, he moved to shortstop, appeared in 11 conference games and batted .211 (other Cougar statistics are unavailable). Faller played two years (1948-49) in the Philadelphia Phillies’ organization where he batted .288 and .287, re- spectively for Klamath Falls (Ore.). He spent several years teaching and coaching high school in Washington. He was hired in 1961 as the Yakima Valley College (now Yakima Valley Community College) as the head football and baseball coach. In baseball, he replaced Bobo Brayton. His baseball teams won 664 games, 11 conference titles and 18 league and regional championships. The NWAACC champion- ship trophy is named in his honor. DALE FORD (1983) Known as “The Whale”, Ford is one of WSU’s greatest all-around athletes, but baseball was where he excelled. He played in the early and mid-1960’s, graduating in 1966. Ford won eight varsity letters in three sports during an era when freshmen couldn’t play varsity sports.