The Kansas State Wildcats baseball team is a member of the

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 ...

and the

Big 12 Conference The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA. It consists of ten full-member universities. It is a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its ...

. The program's first official game was in 1897. Following the completion of the 2021 season, Kansas State's all-time record is 1,904–1,897–10 ().

Home field

Kansas State plays its home games at Frank Myers Field at Tointon Family Stadium. The stadium was built in 1961, and re-dedicated in 2002 with major improvements including a digital scoreboard, upgraded locker-room facilities, coaches' offices, and more. The team's first official home field was an open public square in Manhattan located at Bluemont Avenue and 8th Street, which it began using in the 1898 season, called Athletic Field. Construction of Bluemont Elementary School on that plot of land forced Kansas State to move its athletics on campus beginning in 1911. The team's on-campus baseball diamond was initially located at the southwest corner of the campus, at the current location of Memorial Stadium. However, in the following decades the squad played at numerous locations around Manhattan, including City Park and (for many years) Griffith Park, before the opening of the current ballpark.

History

According to most sources, Kansas State began intercollegiate competition with a match against St. Mary's College on May 26, 1894. (St. Mary's was a regional athletics powerhouse, whose recent graduates included baseball pioneers

Charles Comiskey Charles Albert Comiskey (August 15, 1859 – October 26, 1931), nicknamed "Commy" or "The Old Roman", was an American Major League Baseball player, manager and team owner. He was a key person in the formation of the American League, and was also ...

and Ted Sullivan.) However, the first game reflected in the school's official history is a 4–3 win over Fort Riley on April 10, 1897. Playing in the old Kansas Intercollegiate Athletic Association, the baseball team earned its first varsity championship in 1907 under coach

Mike Ahearn Michael Francis Ahearn (November 28, 1878 – February 5, 1948) was a British-American athlete and college athletics administrator. Ahearn played and coached American football, basketball, and baseball, and was a college professor and athletics ad ...

Kansas State Agricultural College baseball team, 1897

After joining the

Missouri Valley Conference The Missouri Valley Conference (also called MVC or simply "The Valley") is the third-oldest collegiate athletic conference in the United States. The conference's members are primarily located in the midwest. History The MVC was established ...

in 1913, the Kansas State baseball team won major conference titles in 1928, 1930 and 1933. The school's most recent championship was the Big 12 Conference regular season championship in

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fact ...

. Kansas State's best finish at the

Big 12 Conference baseball tournament The Big 12 Conference baseball tournament (sometimes known simply as the Big 12 tournament) is the conference championship tournament in baseball for the Big 12 Conference. Going back to the original format abandoned in 2005, the tournament cons ...

was runner-up at the 2008 tournament. Transcending results on the field, the team established an important milestone when Kansas State catcher

Earl Woods Earl Dennison Woods (March 5, 1932 – May 3, 2006) was the father of American professional golfer Tiger Woods. Woods started his son in golf at a very early age and coached him exclusively over his first years in the sport. He later published t ...

, the father of golfer

Tiger Woods Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods (born December 30, 1975) is an American professional golfer. He is tied for first in PGA Tour wins, ranks second in men's major championships, and holds numerous golf records. * * * Woods is widely regarded as ...

, became the first African-American baseball player in the Big Seven Conference in 1951.

Recent seasons

The Wildcats have established a number of firsts for the program in recent years. The team qualified for its first NCAA Tournament in

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

, and has returned three times since. Kansas State also earned its first national rankings in the ''USA Today''/ESPN Coach's Poll in 2009, and set a new school record for wins with 43 in 2009, breaking the previous mark of 35 set in 1976. In 2013, the Wildcats won the Big 12 Conference title and reestablished a new team record for wins. The school also was awarded the right to host the program's first NCAA regional. After winning the Manhattan Regional, Kansas State advanced to its first ever NCAA Super Regional. The team played at the Corvallis Super Regional, falling to the host and

Pac-12 The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its College football, football teams compete in the NCAA D ...

champion

Oregon State Beavers The Oregon State Beavers are the athletic teams that represent Oregon State University, located in Corvallis, Oregon. The Beavers compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I ( Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) for c ...

. Kansas State finished ranked in the top 15 of all the major polls, the team's highest final rankings in history.

Individual honors

* Craig Wilson played for the U.S. baseball team at the 1992 Olympics.

Conference honors

* Player of the Year :: Craig Wilson – 1992 ::

Nick Martini Nicholas Scott Martini (born June 27, 1990) is an American professional baseball outfielder in the Cincinnati Reds organization. He has played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Oakland Athletics, San Diego Padres, and Chicago Cubs, and in t ...

– 2010 ::Ross Kivett – 2013 * Pitcher of the Year :: A. J. Morris – 2009 * Coach of the Year ::Mike Clark – 1990 :: Brad Hill – 2009, 2013 * Newcomer of the Year ::Jake Scudder – 2016

Rivalry

Kansas State's main rival is the

Kansas Jayhawks The Kansas Jayhawks, commonly referred to as simply KU or Kansas, are the athletic teams that represent the University of Kansas. KU is one of three schools in the state of Kansas that participate in NCAA Division I. The Jayhawks are also a mem ...

. The teams play every year in the

Sunflower Showdown The Sunflower Showdown is the series of athletic contests between Kansas State University and the University of Kansas athletic programs, most notably football and men's basketball. The name is derived from the official nickname for the state ...

Former Wildcats in Major League Baseball

* As of the

2019 Major League Baseball draft The 2019 Major League Baseball (MLB) First-Year Player Draft was held from June 3 to 5, 2019. The draft assigned amateur baseball players to MLB teams. The draft order was set based on the reverse order of the 2018 MLB season standings. In additi ...

, 1 Wildcat has been drafted under the tutelage of current coach

Pete Hughes Pete Hughes (born January 11, 1968) is an American college baseball coach and head coach of the Kansas State Wildcats baseball team. Previously he served as the head coach of the Oklahoma Sooners baseball and the Virginia Tech Hokies baseball team ...

. * 12 former Wildcats have played at least one game in the Majors.Wildcats in Major League Baseball
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Conference membership history

* 1905–1912: Kansas Intercollegiate Athletic Association * 1913–1927:

* 1928–1995:

Big Eight Conference The Big Eight Conference was a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)-affiliated Division I-A college athletic association that sponsored football. It was formed in January 1907 as the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Associatio ...

(known as Big Six 1928–47 and Big Seven 1948–57) * 1996–present:

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kansas State Wildcats Baseball