Aggie Flashback: A&M baseball great Mark Thurmond

Notes from "Aggie Flashback" with Mark Thurmond

* The glory days back in Aggieland were extremely good times for A&M baseball. He is grateful to have had the chance to play under legendary Aggie Baseball Head Coach Tom Chandler who was like a father to him.

* He went on a visit to campus with his older brother while he was in the eighth grade and fell in love with Aggieland.  He actually came to A&M under a football scholarship first and then switched over to baseball at a later point in time. He was recruited by Emory Bellard as a quarterback out of high school, but had full intentions of playing baseball during his time at A&M. He decided that he didn’t have much of a future playing football and might have a chance of a future at playing baseball which was ultimately why he made the decision to stay on the diamond instead of the grid iron. He called Coach Bellard up and Coach understood what he was going through and was very supportive of his decision to play baseball instead of football while at A&M.

* He and Mark Ross were great friends who met each other after their senior years in high school. Ross was a great competitor who could have pitched eight or 10 years in the major leagues if it wasn’t for a couple of injuries that set him back. He spent about nine years in the minors but because of those injuries, he was never able to have to major league career that he was capable of. He was happy to see Ross get inducted into the Texas A&M Sports Hall of Fame and supported his bid for years until it finally went through.

* The three games he remembers most during the years that A&M won the Southwest Conference while he was in school are the games he pitched against Texas. Two of the games were 1-0 shutouts and the third he lost 3-2 in 10 innings. He tells people a lot of times that he wasn’t enjoying the game much when he began his career at A&M and that it wasn’t until he met Coach Chandler that he really started to appreciate the game.

* Back when he played, the locker rooms resembled those you would find at a high school. During his junior year he watched the construction of old Olsen Field and it was a fabulous place at the time. He was spoiled playing on Olsen Field his junior and senior year and thought the field he played on in Amarillo for the Padres double-A team was nothing compared to what he experienced at Olsen.

* He can’t wait to come see Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park in person. He’s heard from several people who have been there that it compares to some major league facilities and he thinks it will definitely help the recruiting efforts of Coach Childress and the rest of the coaching staff. Between the new facilities and the move to the SEC, kids will be lining up to play for Texas A&M.

* Pitching in Amarillo during his time in the Texas League was harder than pitching in the majors. The field was rough, the wind blew in all different directions and the lights were obnoxiously huge to the point that outfielders would lose fly-balls in the lights on a regular basis. He had some serious doubts that he would ever make it to the big leagues while playing in West Texas. He even told his wife that he was ready to pack up his bags and head on home because he didn’t think his baseball career was going to work out. She told him to continue to work through it and that everything would be fine, and he is glad he did because he wouldn’t have had the career he had otherwise.

* He played in the majors until 1990, but he worked every off-season at his father’s insurance business. He used to tell people that he would come to spring training to rest because the month before he would leave when he would tie everything up and be getting back in shape took a toll on him. He always worked in the off-seasons because in baseball, you never know when you’ll fall back down to the minors and then possibly out of a job completely, so it was important to have something else lined up just in case baseball fell through.

* The most amazing thing about his 1983 rookie season was the level of calmness that he was able to bring to the table. He played for one of the top managers, Dick Williams, and was grateful to have him as his first big league manager.

* He made the Sporting News All-Star team during the 1984 season, his best year in the majors.  It was a great honor to be able to call himself an all-star and is grateful that he was blessed with the talents to do so. He started game one of the 1984 World Series and threw 116 pitches in five innings, which is not the type of outing he was used to having. The Detroit hitters were very good at fouling off pitches until they were given something that they could hit.

* It was a tremendous honor to see Pat Olsen throw out the first pitch at the 1984 World Series. Olsen was so excited to be out there and it was great thing to see. He was a really nice man and was similar in personality to Coach Chandler.

* It was fun going against Jack Morris in that World Series game and was able to play with him for a few years after being traded to Detroit. They had Detroit on the ropes in the 7th inning of that game down 3-2 with the bases loaded and no outs. Unfortunately for him, Morris was able to strike out the side and end the inning.

* He played for some great managers including Dick Williams and Sparky Anderson, who are both in the Hall of Fame. Those two guys were total opposites when it comes to their managing styles. Williams was a really good field manager who was good at making moves during a game and knowing when his pitchers were out of gas. Williams would never let a pitcher lose a game when his pitcher had pitched deep into a game because he knew that would carry over into his next start. Anderson was the greatest motivator of all time. He was not as good of a field manager as Williams, but he was a tremendous motivator and guys loved to play for him.