ZONE ROBIN GIVES IT

Ex-Met back at OSU as student & coach

Before Robin Ventura became an MLB star, the former Mets third baseman was one of the most dominant athletes in college history.

The Oklahoma State University product set a Division I record 58-game hitting streak and won the Golden Spikes Award (best amateur player) and the Dick Howser Trophy (best college baseball player). The latter honor had been won in recent years by current superstars like Angels third baseman Anthony Rendon, the Nationals’ Stephen Strasburg and the Cubs’ Kris Bryant.

By age 20, Ventura had a .428 batting average and .792 slugging percentage in college and had accomplished everything you could ever want from his time at OSU.

Well, almost everything: Ventura never got a degree. So, he went back. But why now?

Ventura traced his return to Oklahoma State with a conversation with head coach Josh Holliday.

“I was doing a tailgate with some old friends that I went to school with and Josh came by,” Ventura told the Daily News.

Holliday, the older brother of former Rockies and Cardinals slugger Matt Holliday, joked about having him join his coaching staff. “I think at one point, we were kind of laughing about being interested. … I didn’t really think too much of it.”

Can you blame Ventura for not immediately jumping at the opportunity? The twotime All-Star didn’t exactly have much to prove, in Stillwater or anywhere.

During his tour with the Mets, a time he remembers fondly — “It was fun to go to the ballpark every day… business-like, but everyone had a lot of fun” — his “Grand Slam Single” in the 1999 NLCS immediately became one of the most iconic moments in team history.

In the bottom of the 15th inning of Game 5, with the bases loaded, Ventura demolished a 1-1 pitched into Shea’s cavernous centerfield to keep the Mets season alive. However, because his teammates pummeled him on the way to second base, Ventura never touched the base, forcing the umpire to award him with an RBI single.

Instead of a 7-3 win over the Braves, history shows that the Mets won 4-3 as only one player — Roger Cedeno — was declared to have crossed home plate.

The magic ran out in Atlanta two days later as the Braves won the series with a 10-9 win in Game 6.

The following year, Ventura’s Mets won the pennant and faced the Yankees in the Fall Classic, the first “Subway Series” since 1956. It was the Amazins’ first Fall Classic appearance since the ’86 team rallied to beat the Red Sox. The Mets will honor the 2000 squad — which lost in five games to the Bombers — throughout the ’20 campaign.

Despite holding a career .177 playoff batting average across eight series (including five with the Mets), Ventura is permanently enshrined in October lore.

After the 2001 season, Ventura was traded to the Yankees, made his second All-Star team on a 103-win Yankees squad, and won his sixth and final Gold Glove.

Oh, and he had just managed five seasons with the White Sox (finishing with a 375-435 record), with former Mets teammate Joe McEwing working alongside him in a variety of coaching roles. (McEwing is still a bench coach with the Sox.)

All to say, Ventura is accomplished and rich (he’s made tens of millions in career earnings) — he doesn’t need a coaching job. He definitely doesn’t need a diploma.

But, Ventura does love baseball.

Holliday’s joke evolved into something more for Ventura. The two discussed how his talents, reputation and leadership, could benefit his cherished alma mater.

“Every time I came back [on campus] and he asked, it just got a little more serious,” said Ventura.

However, the role Holliday offered came with a catch: “The only way for me the coach here was to be able to come back to school and finish the degree.”

Thirty-two years later, Ventura is splitting time between taking undergraduate college classes at OSU and coaching in Holliday’s baseball program. Ventura went from a big-league dugout on the