Forty years ago, the Horns' baseball team (with James Street and Burt Hooton on the roster, which also included players such as David Chalk, Pat Brown, David Hall, Randy Peschel and Tommy Harmon) played a very good Arizona State team in the opening game for both teams of the 1969 College World Series.
Texas had been ranked No. 1 in the college baseball polls for most of that season, and Arizona State generally was considered the Horns' primary threat in the 1969 CWS. We didn't have the teams seeded back then for the tournament, and there was no discernable effort to create any equity in the brackets.
Both Street and Hooton were All-America pitichers for Texas that year. The Horns came into the game with a 38-4 season record, while Arizona State was 51-10.
The Sun Devils utilized Larry Gura as their starting pitcher for the game. Gura was a lefty with a 17-1 record and a 1.06 ERA ... and, after the CWS, he went on to a 16-year major-league career.
Texas had to choose between Street (12-1 and a 1.15 ERA) and Hooton (10-0 and a 1.03 ERA) to face Arizona State, and Gus went with Hooton.
The Horns won the game, 4-0, as Hooton (in his freshman season at Texas) pitched a complete-game, three-hit shutout -- while registering 11 strikeouts and yielding one walk.
"Hooton is everything they said he was," observed Bobby Winkles, the Sun Devils' coach. "I didn't ask our boys what they thought of him. I didn't have to.
"When they kept on carrying their bats to the dugout, I knew he was tough."
The rest of that particular CWS experience was less palatable for the Horns, who were eliminated (with a 2-2 record) by NYU on perhaps the most controversial "non-call" by a first-base umpire in CWS history.
Tommy Harmon (who led off the ninth inning of the NYU game with a double and should have scored the tying run on the rhubarb play) can tell you that story some other time.
The important thing for the 2009 Horns, at the moment, is to deal with Arizona State.
Hook 'em.
Texas had been ranked No. 1 in the college baseball polls for most of that season, and Arizona State generally was considered the Horns' primary threat in the 1969 CWS. We didn't have the teams seeded back then for the tournament, and there was no discernable effort to create any equity in the brackets.
Both Street and Hooton were All-America pitichers for Texas that year. The Horns came into the game with a 38-4 season record, while Arizona State was 51-10.
The Sun Devils utilized Larry Gura as their starting pitcher for the game. Gura was a lefty with a 17-1 record and a 1.06 ERA ... and, after the CWS, he went on to a 16-year major-league career.
Texas had to choose between Street (12-1 and a 1.15 ERA) and Hooton (10-0 and a 1.03 ERA) to face Arizona State, and Gus went with Hooton.
The Horns won the game, 4-0, as Hooton (in his freshman season at Texas) pitched a complete-game, three-hit shutout -- while registering 11 strikeouts and yielding one walk.
"Hooton is everything they said he was," observed Bobby Winkles, the Sun Devils' coach. "I didn't ask our boys what they thought of him. I didn't have to.
"When they kept on carrying their bats to the dugout, I knew he was tough."
The rest of that particular CWS experience was less palatable for the Horns, who were eliminated (with a 2-2 record) by NYU on perhaps the most controversial "non-call" by a first-base umpire in CWS history.
Tommy Harmon (who led off the ninth inning of the NYU game with a double and should have scored the tying run on the rhubarb play) can tell you that story some other time.
The important thing for the 2009 Horns, at the moment, is to deal with Arizona State.
Hook 'em.
