The 1975 Missouri Baseball team, coached by Gene McArtor, was a frustrating disappointment to all involved.  1974 had been a succesful year for the team, and 1976 would prove to be one of the best seasons ever enjoyed by Mizzou.  But 1975 failed to meet anyone's expectations.

Pitching was the chief problem, combined with a few key injuries.  Youth also hampered the team, with only four seniors (two of them starters).

The season was also characterized by bad weather.  A number of games were postponed or cancelled due to the cold and snowy spring in Columbia.

 The final 1975 results:

5	Dallas	0
2	Northern Iowa	0
14	Northern Iowa	3
4	Texas Pan-Am	6
5	Northern Iowa	1
0	Texas Pan-Am	8
1	Iowa	3
0	New Orleans	2
4	NW Missouri State	8
3	NW Missouri State	5
15	SW Missouri State	3
7	SW Missouri State	0
5	Central Missouri State	8
6	UMSL	3
1	UMSL	2
8	Kansas State	4
8	Kansas State	14
6	Kansas State	8
4	Nebraska	7
6	Nebraska	8
9	Nebraska	6
10	St. Louis	9
6	St. Louis	10
12	Kansas	8
12	Kansas	14
8	Kansas	6
8	Missouri Western	3
10	Missouri Western	16
1	Oklahoma	7
1	Oklahoma	13
3	Oklahoma	5
10	Iowa State	5
5	Iowa State	6
5	Iowa State	4
3	Oklahoma State	2
2	Oklahoma Sate	6
11	Oklahoma State	10

The following recap features excerpts from The Columbia Daily Tribune, 1975.

---

Steals for Missouri’s Thiel no big deal

(From The Columbia Daily Tribune, March 22, 1975)

Missouri’s Mark Thiel yesterday picked up a pair of catching tips.   One on the shoulder and one on the leg.  Two foul tips.

And if those bouncing baseballs weren’t enough for him, Northwest Missouri State University’s baseball team thought yesterday’s doubleheader at Simmons Field was a track meet.  The Bearcats tried to steal 12 bases yesterday.  Thiel threw out six runners

He also hit a home run in the second game which the Tigers lost 5-3, after Northwest took the opener, 8-4

Some of Northwest’s stolen bases were not Thiel’s fault.  Sometimes Thiel had to contend with bad pitches and always he had to contend with the wind.

“The wind was blowing out to left.  A couple of times when they stole the base, the ball rode to left.  My ball was riding

Thiel wasn’t the only one having problems with the wind.  MU’s outfielders seemed bothered by the gusts and had trouble on fly balls

“The wind had an effect, “ MU coach Gene McArtor said.  “But I like to think we’re past those difficulties.  I think we took the wind for granted.  It probably was stronger than it has been for the week or so that we’ve been outside here, but we should be able to handle it.”

---

Also in the Tribune this week:

Tonight on KRCG 13:  6:30, Porter Wagoner; 7:00, It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown; 7:28, Bicentennial Minute; 7:30, Special:  “The Easter Promise”; 9:00, Tony Orlando Easter Show

---

Tigers take a doubleheader

(From The Columbia Daily Tribune, March 23, 1975)

Pete Woods expected to miss much of the baseball season.  Mark Thiel didn’t.

Woods yesterday pitched Missouri’s baseball team to a 15-3 victory in the opener of yesterday’s doubleheader at Simmons Field against Southwest Missouri State University.

Thiel, the Tigers’ starting catcher, was 2-for-3 in the game.

Tomorrow, Woods will leave the baseball team to devote his time to spring football practice.  The freshman from Jefferson City is rated a good prospect at quarterback.

And Thiel?  Assistant trainer Mike Proffitt said Thiel tore lateral ligaments in his ankle when he tripled in the sixth inning.  He said Thiel’s ankle would be put in a cast for four to six weeks.

The Tigers had little problem without Thiel in the second game, as Terry Lange pitched a four-hitter to lead MU to a 7-0 victory.

---

Also this week in The Tribune:

Knight named Coach of Year

[Bobby] Knight was named yesterday by a national panel of sportswriters and broadcasters as The Associated Press major college Coach of the Year.  The intense young coach was a landslide choice with 210 votes to 15 for second-place Dean Smith of North Carolina.

Knight’s strong emotional ties to his players and his job surfaced Sunday on his weekly television program.

“He [forward Steve Green] was my first,” Knight said in a breaking voice of his first recruit at Indiana four years ago.  “There’s always something special about the first one.”

With that, the show went to a commercial.  When the message was over, the announcer chatted out the remaining minutes with a former player.  The tearful Knight didn’t return.

---

Fair Weather Fans?  Not MU’s Darlings

(From The Columbia Daily Tribune, March 26, 1975)

“Thirty degrees or so, that’s not baseball weather,” Missouri pitcher John Piechochinksi said yesterday after the Tigers (6-7) had lost, 8-5, to Central Missouri State University (1-0) at Simmons Field.

“I played when there was snow out there,” said the man for whom Simmons Field is named, John (Hi) Simmons – MU’s former baseball coach.

“The few times the sun was out made it almost tolerable,” said present MU coach Gene McArtor.

“I couldn’t take it,” Diamond Darling Becky Hancock said.  “I couldn’t do anything but think about how cold it was.”

The Diamond Darlings are an addition to the 1975 MU Baseball team.  They are batpeople, known in previous times as batgirls.  They bring the bats back to the dugout, hand the baseballs to the home plate umpire, pass out programs and when it is cold, they wish their uniforms provided more protection from the elements.

---

Also in the Tribune this week:

Devine is used to the Legends, Refuses to be Afraid of Ghosts

South Bend, IND.   “I think with no ghosts,” Dan Evine said firmly.  To move from the shadow of Vince Lombardi into the shadow of Rockne, Leahy, and Parseghian is a prospect that might shake the most iron-willed of football coaches.  But not Devine, who picked up the reigns of the Notre Dame team this year after a four-year excursion – the latter part of it shattering – in the pro ranks with the Green Bay Packers.

---

MU finds an exceptional hitter

(From The Columbia Daily Tribune, April 2, 1975)

Yesterday Missouri was playing the second game of a doubleheader against the University of Missouri-St. Louis after MU won the first game, 6-3, at Simmons Field.

In the third inning, UMSL’s Bob Diering hit a fly ball to center.  MU’s Jim Mitchell raced in and dived to try to catch the ball.  He missed and injured himself.

So Mitchell left the game, Tom Ellis moved from right to center and DH Bruce Whitesides entered the game in right field.

All of which left starting pitcher John Piechocinski batting in Mitchell’s leadoff spot.  In the bottom of the third, Piechocinski selected a bat, walked to the plate, and waited for the pitcher to throw the baseball.

It’s a simple procedure.  And in MU’s case, an historic one.  Piechocinski’s at-bat was the first time in two years that an MU pitcher had batted.

---

Also this week in the Tribune:  Wooden and the Bruins:  Famous Pair Wins Another Title

---

MU to face KSU today

(From The Columbia Daily Tribune, April 4, 1975)

Missouri’s baseball team is scheduled to open its Big Eight season this weekend at Kansas State.  The Tigers were to have played a single game today at 1 p.m. and are slated to play a doubleheader tomorrow at 1 p.m.

Last weekend’s scheduled conference opener against Colorado was cancelled due to bad weather.

---

Also in the Tribune this week: 

CATV not near, Novak warns.   Cable television will be slow and expensive arriving in Columbia, warns city Manager Terry Novak.

---

Tigers Boot a Doubleheader

(From the Columbia Daily Tribune, April 6, 1975)

Five Missouri errors in two innings opened the door for Kansas State to sweep a doubleheader from the Tigers (8-10, 1-2 in the Big Eight) yesterday, 14-8 and 8-6.

Missouri won the season opener from the Wildcats on Friday, 8-4.

Missouri jumped in front of KSU (10-11, 2-1) with two runs in the top half of the first inning in the first game.

A hit by outfielder Tom Ellis and three two-out singles by Nick Leon, Greg Cypret, and Mike Lally gave the Tigers two runs.

But then Missouri made five of its six errors in the next two innings.  Coupled with three walks, a wild pitch, and three stolen bases, Kansas State grabbed a 5-2 lead after two innings.

Missouri’s next contest is a Tuesday doubleheader with Northeast Missouri State, beginning at 1:30 p.m. at Simmons Field.

---

Also in the Tribune this week: 

Cards’ Hernandez fulfills a dream tonight.

21-year old Keith Hernandez, whom the Cardinals say can’t miss stardom, will be in their lineup when the National League club faces the Montreal Expos tonight.

---

Tigers Capture Finale Against Nebraska

(From The Columbia Daily Tribune, April 13, 1975)

LINCOLN, Neb.-- Missouri’s baseball team yesterday salvaged one game of a three-game series against Nebraska, topping the Cornhuskers, 9-6, here.

It was MU’s second Big Eight Conference win in six starts and raised the Tigers’ overall mark to 9-12.  Nebraska is 5-1 in the conference and 7-9 overall.

The home club helped Missouri in the fourth by making three errors.  The big hit in the inning was a two-run single by right fielder Bruce Whitesides, who had three hits on the day Jeff Haferkamp, Tom Ellis, and Jim Werner drove in the other three runs in the fourth.

---

Sometimes pitchers get hit

And sometimes they get hit and hit and hit and...

(From The Columbia Daily Tribune, April 16, 1975)

 Some days a pitcher gets hit.  And other days a pitcher gets hit.Yesterday was one of those days for Missouri pitchers.  Particularly for Tony Lange.

The Tiger left-hander absorbed five hits in the three innings he pitched in the second game of MU’s doubleheader against St. Louis University.

The hit that hurt most was the first he gave up.  After two scoreless innings, Billiken Bill Hopfinger lined the ball off Lange’s shin.  The ball caromed past third baseman Nick Lally into left field for a double.  The Billikens (3-13) went on to score six runs that inning and win the game, 10-6, and split the doubleheader after the tigers won the first, 10-9, with a ninth-inning rally.

“It didn’t  hurt right away,” said Lange, a freshman from Ballwin.  “After I got hit, I lost my concentration.”

As for the overall performance of the MU pitchers, McArtor said, “I thought it was lousy.” “I don’t think it’s a case of our pitchers taking people lightly.  We’re just out of reasons for it happening.  If it were one person, you could not pitch him.  But when its your staff…”

It’s a staff-wide problem.  It’s part inexperience.  It’s part lack of maturity.  It’s very discouraging for our hitters.  And I know nobody’s ,more disappointed than our pitchers.  They know what the difficulties are.”

---

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p> Also this week in The Tribune:  <o:p></o:p> Letter postage may rise again:  Postal officials…have announced the need to increase the price of a first class 10 cent stamp to 12 or 13 cents.

---

Tigers Lose in Ten Innings