Linfield
College baseball players Kip Patterson, Mike Maley
and Mike Springer on the day
Linfield won the 1971 national
baseball championship in Phoenix, Ariz.
HOW A COTTAGE
GROVE BARBER SHOP PLAYED A ROLE IN MIKE MALEY ATTENDING LINFIELD
Growing up in the small logging community of Lorane, Oregon, Mike Maley traveled with his father on some Saturdays to Cottage Grove to get a haircut.
Waiting in the two-chair shop for his turn, Mike enjoyed reading the sports section of The Oregonian, a Portland newspaper he normally wouldn’t see. And he also read the Eugene Register Guard, the main newspaper of the area, there, too.
Mike didn’t know
of Linfield or Linfield baseball until reading newspaper stories about the
college, including about its sport program, including its 1966 national championship baseball
team.
After reading Linfield,
he would go to college there and be the first of his family to earn a college
degree, he also really wanted to play baseball for the Linfield Wildcats. He
did both.
Mike attended Crow
High School, a school that consolidated students from his hometown and the
nearby community of Crow. The school’s total enrollment was 160 students.
In his senior year
1968 he led (pitcher, outfielder) his team to a state high school baseball
title in a game played at Portland Civic Stadium. He was an Oregon all-state
selection, playing the State-Metro series. Mike said he was gratified to be the
only small school player selected. Future Linfield teammates Mike Springer, Ron
Webb, Spencer Wales, and Mike Smithey also played in that series.
A highlight of his
time as a Wildcat baseball player was being a starting outfielder on the Linfield 1971
national championship team.
In his 1972 senior year at Linfield, uniform #32, he was a unanimous Northwest Conference all-star selection and a first team West Coast NAIA all-star outfielder. Prior to his senior season Mike received Northwest Conference honorable mention all-star designations.
Postscripts:
--Lorane, Crow,
Cottage Grove and Eugene are in Lane County, western Oregon. It’s about 13 miles
from Lorane to Cottage Grove and about 22 miles from Cottage Grove to Eugene.
It’s more than 90 miles from Eugene to McMinnville.
--Mike graduated
from Crow High School (home ,of the “Cougars”) in 1968 and from Linfield in
1972.
--He was the
valedictorian of his high school graduating class 0f 36. Mike jokes he got that
by default because he was one of the few students that consistently did their
homework.
--He met his wife
Kathy (Lund) at Linfield and a couple of years ago they celebrated their
50-year anniversary.
--After Linfield,
Mike went on to earn a Masters of Social Work from Portland State University.
His entire professional career was working in services for people with
intellectual and development disabilities and their families.
Originally posted at Wildcatville blog 3/23/2025
