The East Carolina Pirates baseball team is an intercollegiate baseball team representing

East Carolina University East Carolina University (ECU) is a public university, public research university in Greenville, North Carolina. It is the fourth largest university in North Carolina. Founded on March 8, 1907, as a Normal school, teacher training school, East ...

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

Division I

college baseball College baseball is baseball that is played on the intercollegiate level at institutions of higher education. In comparison to football and basketball, college competition in the United States plays a smaller role in developing professional pl ...

and participates as a full member of the

American Athletic Conference The American Athletic Conference (The American or AAC) is an American collegiate athletic conference, featuring 11 member universities and five affiliate member universities that compete in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) ...

. The Pirates have made regular appearances in the NCAA Tournament. As of 2021, they have the most NCAA tournament appearances without a College World Series appearance. The Pirates are coached by

Cliff Godwin Cliff Godwin (born February 2, 1978) is an American baseball coach and former catcher, who is the current head baseball coach of the East Carolina Pirates. He played college baseball at East Carolina from 1998 to 2001 for head coach Keith LeClai ...

and play their home games at Clark-LeClair Stadium, named after donor and alumnus Bill Clark and former coach

Keith LeClair Keith Aaron LeClair (February 26, 1966 – July 16, 2006) was an American athlete and later head baseball coach at Western Carolina University (Player, 1985–88 and Coach 1992–97). During his playing days, LeClair played for former Clemson Uni ...

. Every year, the Pirates host a baseball tournament in Greenville in honor of Coach LeClair called the Keith LeClair Classic.

History

Conference

*1948–1962: North State *1963–1965: Independent *1966–1977:

Southern Conference The Southern Conference (SoCon) is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I. Southern Conference football teams compete in the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly ...

*1978–1981: Independent *1982–1985:

Eastern College Athletic Conference The Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) is a college athletic conference comprising schools that compete in 15 sports (13 men's and 13 women's). It has 220 member institutions in NCAA Divisions I, II, and III, ranging in location fro ...

*1986–2001:

Colonial Athletic Association The Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division I whose full members are located in East Coast states from Massachusetts to South Carolina. Most of its members are public universi ...

*2002–2014:

Conference USA Conference USA (C-USA or CUSA) is an intercollegiate athletic conference whose current member institutions are located within the Southern United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports. C-USA's offices are l ...

*2015–present:

Head coaches

''* 1942, 1946–1949 No Records Available ''
''* 1943–1945 No Games Played''

Stadium

Clark-LeClair Stadium is the home of Pirate baseball at

Greenville, North Carolina Greenville is the county seat of and the most populous city in Pitt County, North Carolina, Pitt County, North Carolina, United States; the principal city of the Greenville, North Carolina metropolitan area, Greenville metropolitan area; and th ...

. The stadium was named after Pirate alumnus and key contributor Bill Clark and former Pirate skipper

. The stadium has 3,000 Stadium bleacher seats, plus space for several thousand more spectators in "The Jungle". There are concession and restroom facilities at the stadium plus a family picnic area. Amenities include the Pirate Club fundraising and hospitality suite and a private suite for the LeClair family. The stadium is home to the ECU Invitational and the Keith LeClair Classic.

Year-by-year results

''* Division I only''

NAIA tournament

In 1961, the ECU Pirates won the

NAIA Baseball World Series The NAIA World Series (officially branded as the Avista NAIA World Series for sponsorship purposes from 2013) is a double-elimination tournament, held since 1957, to determine the baseball champion of the National Association of Intercollegiate At ...

championship to claim East Carolina's first national championship in baseball. The

East Carolina Pirates The East Carolina Pirates are the athletic teams that represent East Carolina University (ECU), located in Greenville, North Carolina. All varsity-level sports teams participate at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division ...

won 13–7 over the

Sacramento State Hornets The Sacramento State Hornets (also Sac State) represent California State University, Sacramento in Sacramento, the capital city of the U.S. state of California, in intercollegiate athletics. The school fields 21 teams including men and women's ba ...

. Since then, the Pirates have yet to make it to a national championship.

NCAA tournament

*The

NCAA Division I baseball tournament The NCAA Division I Baseball Championship is held each year from May through June and features 64 college baseball teams in the United States, culminating in the eight-team Men's College World Series at Charles Schwab Field Omaha in Omaha, Neb ...

started in 1947. *The

format Format may refer to: Printing and visual media * Text formatting, the typesetting of text elements * Paper formats, or paper size standards * Newspaper format, the size of the paper page Computing * File format, particular way that informatio ...

of the tournament has changed through the years.

Pirates in the Major Leagues

*Over the 5-year tenure of current head coach

, 14 Pirates have been drafted. *Since the MLB draft began in 1965, 2 Pirates have been selected in the first round: Pat Watkins was selected 32nd in 1993 and Jeff Hoffman was selected 9th in

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wat ...

. *A total of 20 Pirates have gone on to play in the

MLB Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

, 3 of which are active players.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:East Carolina Pirates Baseball