Updated: June 25, 2004

Wedge re-lives glory days

By Gary Miller
Special to ESPN.com

It's been 15 years since All-American catcher Eric Wedge led Wichita State's Shockers to a shocking College World Series championship (it had been 16 years since a cold-weather team won the event, with Dave Winfield leading the 1973 Minnesota Gophers). It remains the only national title of any kind in Shockers athletic history.

When Wedge and teammates, which included Mike Lansing and Pat Meares, were done celebrating in Rosenblatt Stadium, they jammed the bus the next day for the ride back to Wichita. That Sunday afternoon when they came over that last hill toward campus, they could see their home, Eck Stadium, was packed beyond capacity with local well-wishers waiting to greet their champs. It was just the next in a series of moments around that 1989 title that Wedge and his teammates will never forget. Not long after that, they visited the White House to meet with the first President Bush, the old Yale first baseman, who actually played in the second-ever CWS. Wedge played catch with the senior Bush in the Rose Garden -- George H. actually threw him a knuckler.

The youngest manager in the majors, Wedge says he dreads these two weeks in June in some ways, because the old footage of his heroics is going to come up again, and while many of his players may not put the video of the mustachioed Wedge together with their skipper, if pitching coach Carl Willis catches it, or bench coach Buddy Bell, the needle can go in pretty deeply.

Wedge says he doesn't have any particular keepsakes from that time -- his mom has all of it -- and the one thing he treasured, he gave away. His dad Tim, a former truck driver who's ailing back had taken him off the road and into marketing, often drove the 14 hours from their home in Fort Wayne, Ind. starting Friday night, and would be in Wichita in time for the noon doubleheaders on Saturdays, then drive back to Fort Wayne after the Sunday game until the next weekend homestand. Eric told me his dad knew this would be the last chance to see him play regularly, and that he never even knew his dad was coming until he'd show up just before first pitch. Because of that kind of dedication, and the values he instilled in Eric, a few years after being drafted out of Wichita by the Red Sox, Eric gave his championship ring to his father as a Christmas present.