Principia Baseball’s Disco Days:

A First Person Account of the Sensational Seventies

by Mark Raffles (C'78)

Like many young men, athletics was central to my life growing up. As such, the baseball diamond was a great proving ground for the truths of Christian Science, both in performance, and injury protection and relief. Crowning that experience was the golden opportunity to take the field at Principia with teammates sharing that Christly standpoint.

I was a freshman in 1975, the year that separates the old from the new in Principia baseball. That was the year nice white pinstripe double-knit uniforms replaced the baggy gray flannels worn previously. PC adorned the chest, instead of the hideous “Chief Wahoo” shoulder patch. And it marked the year of the first spring trip for the then-named Indians.

The trip south involved two blue vans carrying the 15 players, plus manager Gary Gamrath and coach Sandy Cowen. Keep in mind these were the days before iPods, dvd players, cd players, headphones, laptops, and cell phones. We had good old books, magazines, and a deck of cards, so those were long – very long – trips. Our home base would be the locker room at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi, outfitted with eight bunk bed sets and a cot for Gamrath. That’s right – we slept 3 nights in that locker room. We played Millsaps in doubleheaders on Monday and Thursday, with twin-bills in between with Belhaven College and Mississippi College. Another night, we slept in Belhaven’s locker room on cots. There was flooding, so in order to get to the bathroom we had to set up a bridge of 5 folding chairs.

That night, after most of the players had turned in, the lights came back on and two Shakespearean characters burst into the room engaged in a swordfight! It turns out one of our pitchers, who will remain anonymous, had gone out for a walk, ran into some students returning from play rehearsal, and talked them into a little late night prank. Needless to say, the defensive support for this pitcher after that was less than stellar.

One spring trip, we were headed back to Elsah and noticed a car honking wildly to get our driver’s attention. We pulled over and watched Jim Gray, an extremely quiet freshman outfielder emerge from the other car. It seems we had left Jim in the McDonald’s washroom a while back, and he had talked this nice older couple into trying to catch up to us. Apparently, he wasn’t so quiet during that conversation!

Those first few spring trips mostly included games in Mississippi, often with stopovers in Memphis for games on the way down. One year, we took on Grambling and Louisiana Tech. We played Centenary University in Shreveport Stadium, at that time home to the Pittsburgh Pirates AA club, or so we were told. During my four trips we played ball in Tennessee, Texas, and Arkansas, as well.

As I mentioned, this was a transitional period for the baseball program. Back home in 1975, we had no dugouts, only a couple of temporary benches. A ramshackle equipment shed contained a few rakes and shovels. A portable red wood snow fence was erected each year, and taken down so fall soccer practice could be held. A rusty old scoreboard, where you could hang metal numbers sat on the first base side, but no one ever bothered to use it.

Our regular schedule back then included:  Washington University, Illinois College, Greenville, Lindenwood, Missouri Baptist, MacMurray, and then the College Athletic Conference tournament brought Centre, University of the South, Rose-Hulman, and Southwestern (now Rhodes). Principia teams tended to hit pretty well, but defense and pitching were often problems. I had used wood bats in high school, so we were using the first generation of metal bats. Compared to today’s composite sticks, we were swinging plumbing pipe.

Of course, everything about the program is better now - the players, the conference, the field, the facilities, etc. The game, however, retains its timeless charm - a crisply turned double play, a curve ball that catches the corner, a line drive in the gap, a slide home with the winning run. The magic of those moments is the same now as it was back in 1975.