Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Brosius, Linfield keep up baseball winning tradition

Mini pennant lick and stick stickers (they were meant to be licked and affixed to envelopes sent in the mail etc.) sold in the Linfield Bookstore in, appx. 1950s, 19602 and 1970s.

Brosius, Linfield keep up baseball winning tradition

Wildcatville added information to this story. In the NCAA Div III national tourney in Appleton, Wisc., Linfield won its opener, 5-1, over Wisconsin-Whitewater. It lost 6-5 to Trinity and 3-2 to Adrian. Linfield ended the season with a 35-13 win-loss record.

http://www.oregonlive.com/mlb/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/sports/121151491174200.xml&coll=7

Brosius, Linfield keep up winning tradition

The World Series MVP led the Wildcats to a school record for wins in his first year as head coach

Friday, May 23, 2008
By JOHN HUNT
The Oregonian

Scott Brosius, the most valuable player of the 1998 World Series for the New York Yankees, knows something about teams with tradition.

Now coach of the Linfield College Wildcats, Brosius is seeking to rewrite Linfield history while keeping alive a tradition that dates to the days of Babe Ruth.

In Appleton, Wisc., Linfield (34-11) plays today in the opening round of the NCAA Division III national championship tournament, trying to capture its first title. And Brosius, in his first season as head coach, is the fifth consecutive Wildcats coach to have played and then coached at Linfield -- an all-in-the-family approach that began in 1930.

"One of the things that's really hard to explain to other people is the amount of pride that goes with being involved in this school as a player and now as a coach," said Brosius, who hit .332 in three seasons at Linfield before leaving as a 20th-round selection of the Oakland A's in the 1987 amateur draft.

Brosius returned to the McMinnville school in 2002 to get his degree, coached for five seasons under Scott Carnahan before replacing the longtime coach this season.

Carnahan took over in 1984 for Ad Rutschman, who replaced Roy Helser in 1971. Before Helser, the Wildcats were coached by Henry Lever, who began this 79-year string of consistency.

Helser's 1966 team won the NAIA World Series for Linfield's first national championship. Rutschman repeated the feat in 1971. During his tenure as a Linfield coach, Rutschman-coached teams won one baseball and three football national titles. He's the only college coach at any level to have won national titles in both football and baseball

In the 2008 season, Linfield -- which has won or shared 32 Northwest Conference baseball titles -- has recorded its 17th consecutive winning season. The Wildcats have a team ERA of 2.81, the staff still thriving under Carnahan, who is now the pitching coach. The Wildcats' team fielding percentage of .972 ranks second in NCAA Division III. As any tradition-minded baseball man knows, the ability to pitch the ball and catch it translates to wins at any level.

"We've been so strong on the mound and our pitching and defense have been very good," said Brosius, whose team set a school record for wins. "You hear that saying at any level of competition, any level of baseball, that pitching and defense win championships and that has certainly been the case for us."

The Wildcats, No. 8 in the American Baseball Coaches Association poll, worked out in Appleton, Wis., on Thursday in preparation for today's game against Wisconsin-Whitewater (39-8) at 2:30 p.m.

If Linfield overcomes Whitewater's home-field advantage, it will face the winner of tonight's game between second-ranked Cortland State (42-3) and No. 3 Trinity (41-0).

The Wildcats have seen some adversity. Having lost three consecutive games and with postseason hopes on the line, Linfield beat George Fox in the final regular-season game to clinch its first Northwest Conference championship since 2005 and the league's automatic berth to the NCAA Division III regionals.

"There is certainly an attitude with this team that from Day One that said, 'We're going to put ourselves in a position to play for a national championship,' " Brosius said. "This is a mentally strong team."

Brosius, the Northwest Conference coach of the year, said he doesn't view this job as a steppingstone.

"I have a lot of pride with being a Linfield graduate and playing for Linfield because of the way we go about things," he said. "We've done things the right way and so there is a lot of pride that goes with that. For me to have the opportunity to come back and now be the head coach here is pretty special.

"When you leave this school and you've played here, you're a part something that lasts a whole lifetime."

Or, a few lifetimes.