shades of maroon

It’s time for a Mississippi State flashback. The Bulldogs are SEC regular season champions for the first time since 1989. Yes, current State coach John Cohen was a player on that team, along with a host of others who surely hold a special place in the memory bank of Bulldog Nation. The ’89 team, which won 54 games under Ron Polk, had seven players picked in the MLB draft, including Pete Young, Jody Hurst, Richie Grayum, Barry Winford, Brad Hildreth, Bobby Reed and Jon Shave. (Reed and Shave returned to school.) Tommy Raffo, who went undrafted that year, led the Bulldogs with a .383 average, 22 homers and 80 RBIs. He was an All-America pick, along with Young, who played third base and closed. Raffo, Young, Hurst, Winford and Burke Masters made All-SEC. Reed, the staff ace who went 12-3, somehow did not make the all-conference charts. The ’89 Bulldogs clinched the SEC title in one of the more memorable games in school history, a 28-16 pounding of Kentucky in which they blasted six home runs. Tracy Echols had six of the team’s 30 hits. (It was the Gorilla Ball era in college baseball.) State did not win the SEC Tournament, bowing out in three games, but did host an NCAA regional. The Bulldogs won four times before huge crowds at Dudy Noble Field but ultimately were eliminated by North Carolina, which beat them twice. The 2016 Bulldogs will take an 11-game win streak into the SEC Tournament, which figures to be an absolute war. Like the ’89 team, State is in good shape to host a regional regardless of what happens in Hoover, Ala.