20231111_032114 from Wild Catville on Vimeo.
VIDEO: LINFIELD 1971 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP BASEBALL TEAM ARRIVES AT PDX/PORTLAND INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
It’s the summer of 1971.
Led by first-year baseball
coach Ad Rutschman, Linfield won the 1971 NAIA national baseball championship in Phoenix, Ariz.,
defeating Lipscomb (Tennessee), 9-8, in 10 innings on a hot Wed., June 8, 1971,
afternoon.
The next morning,
Thur., June 9, 1971, Linfield baseball flew from Phoenix and arrived at
PDX/Portland International Airport.
This brief video
shows the team’s arrival and Coach Rutschman being interviewed. See the video via
this link:
https://vimeo.com/884203199?share=copy
Also, see the same
video via this link:
Read more about the
team in its Linfield Athletics Hall of Fame bio:
https://golinfieldwildcats.com/honors/linfield-athletics-hall-of-fame/1971-baseball-team/38
In the bio you will
read about super fans Dave Hansen Bruce Baldwin, Tom Sutro and Phil Hankins. They
appear at the end of the video.
Postscript: Bruce Baldwin said (in 2023) that (in 1971) Linfield
President Gordon Bjork “loaned his big 4-door Chrysler and school's
credit card, for gas only, to Dave Hansen and me. We recruited Tom Sutro and
Phil Hankins to accompany us. After the championship game, the four of us drove
all night (rotating drivers) back to Portland to meet the team's 10:30 morning arrival
time at Portland airport. Somebody reported that we had to have averaged 73 mph
to make the airport in time. A mob of family, friends, students (and us four)
welcomed the team back.”
Go,
Wildcats!
