Tonight, Washington Nationals’ shortstop Trea Turner has joined the elite club of NC State baseball alums to play in a Major League Baseball World Series. He helped the Washington Nationals reach the city’s first Fall Classic since 1933, and thus far in the postseason he has 15 hits in 64 postseason at bats, with a home run, three RBI and a stolen base that came in game one of the World Series.
Turner, who missed some 40 games after suffering a broken hand in the first week of the season, has been a spark plug for the Nationals, and a huge NC State representative, wearing a Wolfpack football helmet and rugby hat with his googles during postgame celebrations.
He finished the season with a .298 batting average, 19 home runs for the second consecutive season and 35 stolen bases, which ranked fifth in Major League Baseball.
NC State’s other eight World Series participants:
Dave Robertson, New York Giants, 1917
The Norfolk, Va., native – who played football, basketball and baseball at the North Carolina School for Agriculture and Mechanic Arts – set a World Series record with a .500 batting average (11-for-22) against the champion Chicago White Sox in 1917 that was later broken by New York Yankee star Billy Martin. Robertson, who twice led the American League in home runs and played for nine seasons with three clubs, is a member of the NC State Athletic Hall of Fame.
Kemp Wicker, New York Yankees, 1937
Wicker, a native of Kernersville, N.C., was on four World Series teams (NYY 1936-38, Brooklyn Dodgers, 1941) in his four seasons of Major League Baseball. However, he made only one pitching appearance in the postseason. In 1937, he was a member of both the AAA Junior World Series (International League vs. American Association) champion Newark Bears and the World Series champion New York Yankees. He pitched exactly one postseason inning in the subway series against the New York Giants, a scoreless frame in the Giant’s lone victory.
Jimmy Brown, St. Louis Cardinals, 1942 (World Series champion)
Brown, Joe DiMaggio and Phil Rizzuto were the only hitters with 20 at-bats in the 1942 World Series to hit .300 or higher. After seven seasons with the Cardinals, the Jamesville, N.C., native was called into active duty in the U.S. Air Force, spending his 2 1/2 years of World War II service in Memphis, Tennessee, where he played baseball and basketball for the military base team.
He attempted a comeback in 1946 with the Pittsburgh Pirates, where his sole claim to fame was breaking the first players’ strike in MLB history, for which he was beaten up in an alley. After his playing career ended in 1946, he spent nearly 15 years as a major league, minor league and Latin leagues manager before retiring to Bath, N.C., where he died in 1977.
Roger Craig, Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers, St. Louis Cardinals1955, 1956, 1959, 1964 (3-time World Series champion)
Craig never played baseball at NC State, but he was a member of Everett Case’s freshman basketball squad. He won 74 games in his 12-year career as a right-handed pitcher, twice leading the league in losses (24 in 1962 and 22 in 1964). As a manager, he took the San Francisco Giants to the 1989 World Series, remaining steadfast during the infamous Earthquake Series 30 years ago this season. The Durham native is 89 years old.
Mike Caldwell, Milwaukee Brewers, 1982
Caldwell recorded two of Milwaukee’s three wins against the St. Louis Cardinals in the ’82 World Series, which was near the end of his brilliant 14-year MLB career. The Tarboro, N.C., native won a total of 173 games and led the American League with 23 complete games in 1978, when he finished with a 22-9 record and was second to Ron Guidry for the Cy Young Award. After a full career as a minor league pitching instructor, Caldwell spends much of his retirement time in Raleigh. He is also a member of the NC State Athletic Hall of Fame.
Tim Stoddard, Baltimore Orioles, 1979
Stoddard, the former NC State baseball and basketball star, pitched in the 1979 World Series for the Baltimore Orioles, which lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Orioles won the title in 1983, but Stoddard, after being injured in the regular season, did not pitch in the series.
He is one of two people in history to play in both a World Series and the NCAA Final Four. The other is Kenny Lofton, who went to the same East Chicago (Ill.) High School as Stoddard. The burly pitcher is still the only person to ever win championships in both. In the 1993 movie "Rookie of the Year," when the young phenom Henry Rowengartner taunts an opponent with "Pitcher's got a big butt," that butt belonged to Stoddard.
Tracy Woodson, Los Angeles Dodgers, 1988 (World Series champion)
The former All-American slugger, who was the 1984 ACC Player of the Year, was the first Dodger player to hug Kirk Gibson after the legendary game-winning walk-off homer against the Oakland A's in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series. He played in four games against the A’s, but did not get a hit. He retired after five combined seasons with the Dodgers and Cardinals. He is now the head coach at the University of Richmond.
Adam Everett, Houston Astros, 2005
Everett played one year for the Wolfpack before transferring to South Carolina to play for former NC State coach Ray Tanner. He enjoyed an 11-year major league career, but was just 1-for-15 in the 2005 World Series loss to the Chicago White Sox. After two seasons as a bench coach with the Houston Astros, Everett has spent the last two years as a roving infield instructor for the Atlanta Braves.
Like Wicker and Stoddard, who pitched in 47 games for the Orioles in 1983, both Boston Red Sox shortstop Jonathan Diaz and Chicago pitcher Jake Buchanan played during the regular season for the World Series champions, but were not part of the postseason roster for their teams. Both, however, received World Series rings for their contributions to the championship seasons.
Tim Peeler is a regular contributor to The Wolfpacker and can be reached at tmpeeler@ncsu.edu.
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