UConn's Unlikely Journey to the 1979 College World Series (Part II)

The inside story of the most successful UConn baseball season to date.

Continued from Part 1 here:

“We knew every game that somebody was going to come through with a big offensive play or big defensive play,” Guzzardi said. It certainly felt that way.

On April 23^rd, Dennis Donovan scored on a wild pitch in extra innings to give Connecticut a 5-4 victory at home against Fairfield.

On the 24^th, LaVigne drove in a school-record seven runs in an 18-9 victory at Boston College.

On the 25^th, the Huskies swept Brown in Storrs. In the opener, Levigne slugged his sixth home run in a 12-5 victory. In the late game, UConn won under questionable circumstances. In the top of the seventh inning, Brown tied the game at 5 when the umpires called the game due to darkness. Citing ECAC rules, the umpires reverted the game to the score at the end of the sixth inning, which was UConn 5-3, and declared Connecticut the winner.

On May 3^rd, Connecticut defeated Holy Cross 1-0 to increase the Huskies’ winning streak to 10. McLaughlin threw a three-hit shutout while Gary Woodfield hit a 410-foot first-inning home run to provide the only offense.

Despite all their success, the Huskies drew modest crowds to J.O. Christian Field.

“You had some diehard fans that were there every game, but it wasn’t huge. The weather is not great. When the weather was nice, we got more students there,” Cannata said.

“We played for moms and dads and roommates,” Hoffer said.

Despite their lack of fan support, Colin McLaughlin compared the Huskies that spring to arguably the most beloved team in New England baseball history.

“Maybe we’re like the ‘75 Red Sox, a whole bunch of kids playing over their heads. Maybe the bubble will burst. We have youthful spirit and maybe we’re a little cocky. Maybe everybody else gets worse,” McLaughlin told Woody Anderson of the Hartford Courant during the 10-game winning streak.

Connecticut split its last four regular-season games, concluding its schedule on May 8^th.

“The best part of that year was after everybody left school, and we were the last ones left on campus. We all stayed in a dorm together. We practiced during the day and went out at night. We felt like professional baseball players,” Hoffer said.

23-9 UConn entered the ECAC New England Tournament at Holy Cross in Worcester after a long layoff. The four-team double-elimination tournament started on Friday, May 18^th, ten days after the Huskies’ previous game. 23-7 Maine held the top seed and played fourth-seeded UMass in the opener. Second-seeded UConn played Fairfield in the second game.

Connecticut dropped the opener against Fairfield 2-1 but came back the next day and defeated Maine 4-0 on a Colin McLaughlin one-hitter. The Huskies then ended Fairfield’s season, earning extravagant revenge in a 12-2 romp. On the final day of the ECAC New England championship, UConn started the day by outslugging UMass 14-10. They earned a trip to the NCAA tournament in the second game thanks to Steve Cannata. The junior hurler allowed just six hits and one earned run in an 8-1 victory over the Minutemen.

“I knew that we had to win to keep going. I was taking it one out at a time and seeing how long I could go,” Cannata said of his standout performance against UMass in the ECACs.

The following weekend, UConn headed to Annapolis, Maryland, for the four-team NCAA Northeast Regional. The competition included a nationally ranked Nebraska squad as well as Navy and St. John’s teams that won the ECAC Mid-Atlantic and ECAC Metro championships, respectively.

UConn won a rain-shortened 5-4 game over Navy in the Northeast Regional opener. After taking an early lead over St. John’s in their second game, they ran into the Redmen’s freshman pitching sensation, Frank Viola. Years later, Viola would appear in three All-Star Games for the Minnesota Twins and be named World Series MVP in 1987 and win the AL’s Cy Young Award in 1988. Back in the spring of ’79, he rung up 12 straight UConn batters as St. John’s rallied to a 6-3 victory.

Senior starting pitcher Dennis Long came up huge against Nebraska in game three, holding the Huskers to two hits in a complete game shutout. It didn’t hurt that Connecticut exploded for 20 hits that afternoon in the 15-0 victory.

On the final day of the regional, UConn faced St. John’s again. Connecticut had to win two straight games to earn a College World Series bid, and that’s just what they did.

In the first game, Connecticut rallied from a 4-3 deficit to pound St. John’s 14-4, thanks to a nine-run fifth inning. Remarkably, none of the runs were earned as St. John’s committed four errors in the inning, which facilitated all of Connecticut’s offense.

In the second game, McLaughlin slammed the door shut against St. John’s, earning his 12^th win and putting up his finest pitching performance of the season.

On the morning of the game, a reporter from the Hartford Courant heard McLaughlin tell his teammates that St. John’s would defeat Connecticut. Instead, McLaughlin went out and threw a shutout, leading UConn to a 4-0 victory, which finished off St. John’s and secured the Huskies’ College World Series bid.

For lack of a better term, the St. John’s team was mouthy. Their coaches, players, and staff had been riding the umpires and trying to start something with the UConn team all weekend. In the deciding game, the umpires got sick of the ribbing and ejected several St. John’s players and cleared their dugout.

“They had a priest in the dugout who got ejected because he was ragging us so bad,” Hoffer said.

After a brief celebration and respite in Storrs, the Huskies headed for the College World Series, making their first trip by airplane of the season.

UConn traveled to Omaha on May 30th, 1979, the same day as it was announced that Connecticut would be joining a new, yet-to-be-named basketball league for the 1979-1980 season. The conference, which would soon be named “The Big East,” would feature several Eastern powers, including Boston College, Georgetown, Providence, Seton Hall, St. John’s, and Syracuse. Villanova and Pitt would join the Big East in 1980 and 1982, respectively.

Listeners within 50 miles of the UConn campus could listen to the Huskies’ College World Series games on campus radio station, 91.7 WHUS FM. Sportscaster Andy Young traveled with the club and served as a one-man broadcast team.

The opposition in Omaha read like a 1980s MLB All-Star team. Arizona’s roster included Terry Francona and Craig Lefferts; Arkansas had Kevin McReynolds and Johnny Ray; Cal-State Fullerton featured Tim Wallach, while Miami had Neal Heaton and Mike Pagliarulo. The Texas roster featured a dozen future big leaguers, including Ron Gardenhire, Jerry Don Gleaton, and Andre Robertson. Cal State Fullerton’s head coach, Augie Garrido, would go on to become the winningest coach in college baseball history.

It was far from just friends and family in Omaha. More than 10,000 fans attended both of UConn’s College World Series games at Rosenblatt Stadium.

“All of Omaha pretty much turns into the College World Series. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t all on TV back then. The fans were great. They all followed college baseball. We were the underdogs, and a lot of the fans there cheered for us,” Cannata recalls.

“I remember being asked for my autograph, and it was pretty weird,” Hoffer said.

The Huskies opened World Series play on June 2nd against top-ranked Texas.

The Longhorns shelled McLaughin, who surrendered five runs, gave up five hits, and walked six batters in five innings of work. Mark Winters replaced him but fared little better. Bob Hoffer then came in and worked the eighth and ninth innings.

“I remember getting out on the mound and standing on the rubber, and my legs were shaking a little bit. I didn’t think I could throw the ball,” Hoffer said. Hoffer ended up retiring the side in both the eighth and ninth, but the deciding runs had already been scored. Texas won the opener 11-5.

UConn faced Cal State Fullerton the next day in an elimination game. Fullerton dropped its opener to Mississippi State but rebounded convincingly against Connecticut. Connecticut and Fullerton each scored three runs in the first inning. Unfortunately, Fullerton’s hitters kept getting to Dennis Long while UConn mustered little else in the way of offense. Fullerton eliminated Connecticut, 9-3. Little did Connecticut know that they were playing the eventual champions.

On June 8, Fullerton defeated Arkansas 2-1 to win the College World Series.

Connecticut finished the season 31-11, giving them the most wins in the history of the program. Just days after the season ended, Larry Panciera announced his retirement. Andy Baylock was soon selected as his successor.

“Everybody was sad to see Larry [Panciera] go. He told us when we were at the College World Series, before what turned out to be our last game, that he was going to retire,” Hoffer said.

“We knew he was getting close, and we thought he might go out on top. I don’t think it was a huge surprise,” Cannata said of Panciera’s retirement. Connecticut struggled in the early 1980s under Baylock but soon returned to preeminence as one of the top programs in the Big East.

Considering the success of UConn’s 1979 club, it is surprising that none of its members ever cracked a Major League lineup.

Three members of the UConn team made it to the top level of minor league baseball.

Colin McLaughlin was the most likely Major Leaguer. He left school after being selected first overall in the 1980 MLB Winter Draft by the Toronto Blue Jays. It was a long minor league baseball odyssey, reaching ‘AAA’ Syracuse in nine professional seasons before retiring in 1989.

Randy LaVigne was selected by the Chicago Cubs in the 1979 Draft and made it up to ‘AAA’ Iowa in 1982. Dennis Long, too, made it to ‘AAA’ after being selected by the Texas Rangers in 1980.

Mark Winters played in the San Francisco Giants organization and reached high ‘A’ ball. Allan Garry and Dennis Donovan did short stints in the minor leagues as well.

Head coach Panciera spent his retirement in Rhode Island and died in 1998.

Nearly a half-century later, Connecticut remains one of New England’s top college baseball programs, but it has yet to reach the heights that it did in the spring of 1979.

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