The Western Illinois Leathernecks baseball team is the varsity intercollegiate

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

program of

Western Illinois University Western Illinois University (WIU) is a public university in Macomb, Illinois. It was founded in 1899 as Western Illinois State Normal School. As the normal school grew, it became Western Illinois State Teachers College. History Western Illin ...

Macomb, Illinois Macomb is a city in and the county seat of McDonough County, Illinois, United States. It is situated in western Illinois, southwest of Galesburg. The city is about southwest of Peoria and south of the Quad Cities. A special census held in 2 ...

, United States. The program's first season was in 1948, and it has been a member of the

NCAA Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of College athletics, intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major ...

Summit League The Summit League, or The Summit, is an NCAA Division I intercollegiate athletic conference with its membership mostly located in the Midwestern United States from Illinois on the East of the Mississippi River to the Dakotas and Nebraska on the W ...

since the start of the 1985 season. Its home venue is

Alfred D. Boyer Stadium Alfred D. Boyer Stadium is a baseball venue in Macomb, Illinois, United States. It is home to the Western Illinois Leathernecks baseball team of the NCAA Division I Ohio Valley Conference. The stadium opened on May 6, 2006 and has a seating ...

, located on Western Illinois's campus.

Tayler Sheriff Tayler C. Sheriff is an American baseball coach, who is the current Director of Pitching Development for the Cincinnati Bearcats. Coaching career On July 11, 2022, Sheriff was promoted to interim head baseball coach of the Western Illinois Leath ...

is the team's interim head coach starting in the 2023 season. The program has appeared in 0 NCAA Tournaments at the Division I level. It has won zero conference tournament championships and 0 regular season conference titles. As of the start of the 2018 Major League Baseball season, 3 former Leathernecks have appeared in

Major League Baseball 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), ...

History

Early history

The program's first season of play was 1948. On September 19, 2019,

Andy Pascoe Andrew Pascoe (born 1988) is an American baseball coach and former catcher and infielder. Pascoe played college baseball at the University of Evansville from 2007 to 2010 for coach Wes Carroll. He served as the head coach of the Western Illinois ...

was named the seventh head coach in Leathernecks history.

Conference affiliations

Interstate Intercollegiate Athletic Conference The Interstate Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (IIAC) was a college athletic conference that existed from 1908 to 1970 in the United States. At one time the Illinois Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, or IIAC, was a robust league that clai ...

(1948–1970) * Independent (1971–1984) *

(1985–present)

Alfred D. Boyer Stadium

The stadium opened on May 6, 2006, and has a seating capacity of 500. The stadium is named for Alfred D. Boyer, Western Illinois Class of 1972, whose $150,000 donation allowed the facility to be built. The venue features a

press box The press box is a special section of a sports stadium or arena that is set up for the media to report about a given event. It is typically located in the section of the stadium holding the luxury box and can be either enclosed or open to the e ...

, chairback seating, a

Daktronics Daktronics is an American company based in Brookings, South Dakota that designs, manufactures, sells, and services video displays, scoreboards, digital billboards, dynamic message signs, sound systems, and related products. Founded in 1968 by ...

scoreboard, and 60-foot-long dugouts.

Head coaches

Western Illinois's longest tenured head coach was Dick Pawlow, who has coached the team from 1970 to 1998, winning 545 games.

Notable former players

Below is a list of notable former Leathernecks and the seasons in which they played for Western Illinois. *

Paul Reuschel Paul Richard Reuschel (born January 12, 1947) is a former professional baseball pitcher. He played all or part of five seasons in Major League Baseball from 1975 to 1979. Reuschel began his professional career when he was drafted by the Chicago C ...

(1965–1968) *

Rick Reuschel Rick may refer to: People *Rick (given name), a list of people with the given name *Alan Rick (born 1976), Brazilian politician, journalist, pastor and television personality *Johannes Rick (1869–1946), Austrian-born Brazilian priest and mycol ...

(1967–1970) *

Rick Short Richard Ryan Short (born December 6, 1972) is an American former professional baseball second baseman who was the co-Hitting coach for the Arizona Diamondbacks of Major League Baseball (MLB). He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Wash ...

(1993–1994)

References

External links

* {{Illinois-baseball-team-stub