FSU baseball
coach Mike Martin proves that nice guys can finish first, even without a title win, Mike Bianchi writes.
His first win as Florida State’s baseball coach came 38 years ago and coincided with the U.S. Olympic Hockey Team’s massive upset of the Russians at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics. Do you believe in miracles? Mike Martin does. How else do you explain him going from that first unlikely and unsteady come-from-behind victory against Miami as an upstart coach all those years ago to becoming the all-time winningest skipper in college baseball history nearly four decades later? With his 1,976th victory a few days ago against Clemson, Martin surpassed University of Texas legend Augie Garrido for first place on college baseball’s all-time wins list.
If you ask me, hockey’s “Miracle on Ice” isn’t nearly as impressive as college baseball’s “Miracle of Nice.” You see, Martin isn’t just the winningest baseball coach in his sport’s history; he is also one of the nicest guys and greatest ambassadors in his sport’s history. He is truly the Bobby Bowden of college baseball.
His downhome humor, slow-talking storytelling and countrified fish-and-grits charm have helped make him one of college sports’ most enduring and endearing treasures.
“I hope people will always say I did things the right way … and treated people the right way,” says the 74-year-old Martin. Has he ever. Ever since Dick Howser left Florida State to manage the New York Yankees and FSU offered Martin $27,500 to take over the team in 1980, he has been winning baseball games and winning over fans ever since. What other coach do you know who is so beloved that he is simply known by his number? Martin’s friends and fans simply refer to him as “11” — the number he was given as a part-time assistant at FSU in 1975.
He not only has more victories than anybody in the history of the game, he has the highest winning percentage (.736) of any active coach in the sport and has led the Seminoles to the NCAA Tournament every year (38 and counting) he’s been at Florida State. Sadly, of course, there is
other part of his legacy. Despite all of those victories, all of those conference titles, all of those postseason appearances, he is Oh-for-Omaha.
Martin has been to the College World Series 16 times and never won it.
It’s not fair and it’s not right that this spiritual man of faith has been frowned upon by the baseball gods themselves. He’s been snake-bit and star-crossed; cursed with what he might call in his Carolina barbecue brogue, “Dog-gone dad-gum buzzard’s luck.”
His two best teams, including the 2002 squad that won a school-record 60 games, didn’t even make it to Omaha. In 1986, his best pitcher wrenched his neck the night before pitching in the national championship game and the Seminoles ended up losing 10-2 to Arizona.
I once wrote that if you’re rooting against Martin winning a College World Series, “You are probably the same person who slams the door in the face of the pig-tailed, freckle-faced kid selling Girl Scout cookies . ... The same person who yells, ‘Get a job!’ to the homeless man begging for quarters . ... The same person who flips off the little old lady who is driving her Dodge Dart 20 mph in a 45-mph zone.”
I wrote that nearly 15 years ago when Martin had been at FSU for a quartercentury without winning a national championship. Now it’s been almost four decades.
There was a time in his life, Martin told me once, when he became obsessed with conquering the elusive championship. He even compared himself to the tragic character in the Herman Melville classic “Moby Dick.”
“I was like Captain Ahab trying to find that whale every day,” Martin says. “Anything that had to do with winning a national championship, that’s what consumed me.”
At some point, he reached the conclusion that the “journey far outweighs the destination.” However, he does admit that the journey would be a bit anticlimactic without reaching the destination.
“I’d be embarrassed to say my career would be complete without one [national championship],” Martin admits. “But it would not be a a major disappointment and the reason is because, gosh, there are so many good teams throughout the country. We’ve had some of ’em, but all you can say is that it just hasn’t happened.” Maybe this is the year, 11. Maybe this is the year it finally happens.
Do you believe in miracles? Email me at mbianchi@orlandosentinel. com.