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40 years ago, Gentry’s arm, Lind’s heroics sparked ’67 club’s title run
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BIG BAT: Catcher Ron Davini led the 1967 ASU team in hitting at .311 before going on to coach at Corona del Sol.
Arizona State University
The 1967 NCAA title team proved a point: that Arizona State was on college baseball’s national stage to stay. In bringing home the trophy from Omaha, Neb., the Sun Devils won the school’s second title and, more importantly, the second in three years.
View most regular lineup of ASU's 1967 team
ASU didn’t have the sort of superstar hitters of preceding years (Rick Monday, Sal Bando and Reggie Jackson had moved on to pro ball) but this team had outstanding pitching and defense and a solid order.
Beating the competition in Omaha wasn’t the hard part.
That came on May 21, when one of the greatest sports events in Sun Devil history took place.
To advance to the postseason, ASU needed to beat Arizona in a playoff game to win the southern division of the Western Athletic Conference.
In those days, the Wildcats often were the Devils’ biggest test of the season.
“We put on quite a show,” coach Bobby Winkles, now retired in California, said of the two schools. “We usually had the better pitching.”
ASU won a coin flip, so the game was played before a packed house at Phoenix Municipal Stadium, where the Devils played most of their big games.
The game went to the 15th inning, tied, 3-3, with ASU’s Gary Gentry pitching the entire game.
Gentry left in the bottom of the 15th for a pinch-runner at second.
Then Lind stepped to the plate and lined a fast ball inside the right-field line to propel the Devils to Omaha.
“That was my 15 minutes of fame,” said Lind, now a scout for the Houston Astros.
In Omaha, the Suns Devils avenged an earlier loss to Houston by beating the Cougars 11-2 in the title game.
To this day, Winkles has no idea how many pitches Gentry threw against Arizona.
“We didn’t keep up with pitch counts in those days,” Winkles said. “If they got the ball up, we knew they were tired.”
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