Forty-two years ago Olsen Field, recognized as one of the finest in all of college baseball, opened its doors for the first time.
Breathing in the crisp air at C.E. "Pat" Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park, the magic in the stadium is palpable.
The clean white lines on the natural grass field, the whir of baseballs and surge of the crowd after a noble play, the love of the game that gleams in the players' smiles has captivated stadiums full of baseball buffs for generations.
Forty-two years ago, the field, recognized as one of the finest in all of college baseball, opened its doors for the first time.
And Olsen Magic was born.
“Whether the weather is cold or warm, you smell popcorn. You smell the hot dogs. The cut of the grass is there and the lines,” winningest baseball coach in Aggie history, Mark Johnson said of Opening Day. "Everybody has everything fixed up and they've all got their new uniforms on.”
Johnson came to Texas A&M four years after the initial opening ceremonies of the stadium. But he felt the Olsen Magic and the rich history that came with the field as a young coach and throughout his prolific career.
“As plays develop and things happen at ball games, instead of saying we were lucky or something like that, we began calling it Olsen Magic. It became a theme for the team,” Johnson said. “Now, whenever anything special happens, we certainly give Olsen Magic credit.”
Many well-known Aggies have their own memories of the fanfare on Opening Day.
Renowned Aggie public address announcer Derrick "DD" Grubbs remembers the first opening day at Olsen Field for another reason. It was his mom's 49th birthday.
"I had to tell her, 'Mom, we can't go to dinner because we're opening this new baseball field, and I kind of need to be there,'" he said with a laugh.
Grubbs came to the University as a freshman in the fall of 1975. Eventually, he wrote for The Battalion, served in the Sports Information Department and earned a reputation for creating an atmosphere of excitement when he announced games. He was taking photographs during the celebration in 1978.
“I can only imagine how the players on that team felt,” Grubbs said. “They were great guys. They were all good friends of mine, and you have to wonder what they thought. Coach Tom Chandler had a huge smile on his face. He always had a smile on his face. It was such a thrill to see the seats painted maroon. It was breathtaking. To see people sitting in the upper deck was incredible. We knew it was coming."
C.E. "Pat" Olsen, a 1923 Texas A&M mechanical engineering graduate and namesake for the stadium, threw out the ceremonial first pitch. With many dignitaries in attendance, an audio recorded message from the MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn played, congratulating Olsen on the opening ceremony before the Ags faced off against the University of Southern California.
“It was a beautiful day, sunny day,” Aggie All-American and major league pitcher Mark Thurmond said. “We were playing one of the best teams in the country. The stadium was state of the art for the time. It was a grass field, unlike the little AstroTurf place over at TU. Coming from Old Kyle Field to there was like going from the slums to the penthouse.”
In later years, sometimes referred to as Old Kyle Field, the baseball stadium before Olsen's masterpiece was located right next to Aggie football's home.
“The football stadium loomed over centerfield,” Grubbs said. “Those were some interesting days. No press box. Hardly any speakers or anything. But, it was fun.”
Field manager Leo Goertz, sports information director Alan Cannon, head coach Tom Chandler, head coach Mark Johnson and of course, C.E. "Pat" Olsen are credited with the emergence of the atmosphere and the creation of what is now Olsen Field.
“[Old Kyle Field] probably wasn't as good as some of the high school stadiums around here now, so most of the time when people came, it was girlfriends and parents. There would be a few loyal fans that would hang around,” Kyle Hawthorne, who hit the last home run in the old stadium and first Aggie home run in the new stadium, said. “We were lucky if we had 300-400 people at the old field. The first game at the new field, the Aggie Band showed up and there were probably 3,000 people. That was quite a step up from what we were used to.”
The Aggies were scheduled to get into the new stadium at the start of the '78 season. However, construction delays and weather problems led them to play the first month of the season at Travis Park in Bryan which was not in real good shape.
Opening Day in college baseball is usually in February, but with the delays, the team finally got to play in the new stadium on March 21.
“When I started announcing, there was literally nothing over there except Olsen Field, the pig farm, the Chancellor's house and of course the airport further out,” Grubbs said.
Thurmond remembers walking through the construction with teammates and trying to imagine how the finished stadium would look.
“We'd go whenever it was under construction and walk through and try to figure out what this was or what that was going to be,” Thurmond said. “One of the really good things, after we got into the new stadium the following year, was it was a lot shorter run to the Easterwood Airport than it was from over at the football stadium, so we liked that, too.”
As a part of off-season conditioning, the team would run to the airport. The new stadium cut a half mile off the trip.
“We were baseball players and we love baseball, so we didn't really care that much that Kyle Field, the old place that we played, was not the greatest stadium in the world,” Thurmond said. “We loved being Aggies and we loved playing baseball. But, [Olsen Field] was light years better than the old field."
In the 1984 World Series, two Aggies threw out the first pitches. Olsen, who attended over 240 World Series games in his 97 years, threw out the ceremonial first pitch and Thurmond, as the starting pitcher for the San Diego Padres, fired in the first pitch of the game.
A 6-foot tall, bespectacled man with a generous heart, the 1923 Aggie baseball pitcher and officer of the Ross Volunteers, was a creative man of intellect and generosity.
After graduation, Olsen went to a minor league team in Des Moines, Iowa, before signing with the New York Yankees.
While raising money to start his own business and playing the game he loved since boyhood, Olsen attended Spring Training in 1924 with the Yankees, where he roomed with all-time great, Lou Gehrig and was teammates with Babe Ruth.
After four years in professional baseball, Olsen used his gift of inventing to create the Gearench Manufacturing Co. With partner J. Avid Peterson, he became a self-made millionaire even as the Depression hit in 1929.
“He has a patent on an oil rig wrench that is a still a big piece of equipment for the oil rigs and the military came in and asked him to help with calibrating some of their shells,” Johnson said. “They came to him and he helped them get it created to where it would fire at the proper time with efficiency.”
When he returned to College Station after making his fortune in Waco, Olsen lived across from George Bush Boulevard, very close to where the band would practice.
“Mr. Olsen and Mrs. Olsen would wake up to the War Hymn over there,” Johnson said with a laugh. “They were just real strong Aggies."
One of the most popular stories about Olsen even involves his affinity for attending the World Series every year with his wife, Elsie Duncan Olsen, who he met at Texas A&M.
His love for her was strong and he even dedicated a park outside Olsen Field in her honor. Together they bought over 15,000 World Series tickets.
“He was just a diehard [New York] Yankee,” Johnson said. “He would buy multiple tickets and his joy was to give the tickets away to people. In the early years, a lot of the military was coming back and they would be in New York. The Yankees were normally in the World Series. He'd get on an elevator with a couple and give them two tickets to the World Series. He just had a great joy in giving and being benevolent. When he gave things to the university, he did it out of his heart.”
Well-respected all throughout major league baseball and described as humble, kind hearted and charitable, Olsen's glee was evident during the opening ceremonies of the 1978 season.
Having won the Southwest Conference title in 1977, breaking an 18-year streak held by the University of Texas, the 1978 team began play at Olsen Field facing USC, who were the 1978 NCAA Baseball Champions.
“Rod Dedeaux was a legendary college coach and USC was kind of a perennial powerhouse back then,” Hawthorne said. “He got to be good friends with Coach Chandler and so he agreed to come out here and play us for the opening day of Olsen Field.”
Hawthorne hit the last home run in the old stadium and first Aggie home run in the newly minted Olsen Field.
“I was the first hitter on that inning,” Hawthorne, who compiled 30 home runs during his collegiate career, said. “My first time at bat in Olsen Field and the thing that makes me a little bit proud about it is that the guy that was pitching against me was an All-American the year before. His name was Bill Bordley. They had their best pitcher throwing against us.”
1978 was a big year for new beginnings in Aggie Baseball.
“We opened up Olsen Field, a beautiful new stadium. Mark Thurmond, who went on to play major league baseball, threw a no hitter against Texas Tech, and the Houston Astros came for an exhibition game that year,” Grubbs said. “A&M beat them on a walk off single and we won the Southwest Conference Championship in '77 and '78.”
During their Spring Training, the Astros came to Aggieland and were in awe of Olsen Field.
“All the Astros commented on how great the stadium was, how they wished they had gone to college and come up there, because the stadium was so good,” Hawthorne said. “There was a guy named César Cedeño. He was a really well-known player back then. He was kind of funny about it and joking about wanting coach (Chandler) to give him a scholarship.”
Hawthorne attributes the team's success to great pitching and consistency.
“We had two pitchers that were All-Americans, Mark Ross and Mark Thurmond,” Hawthorne said. "They're both in the Hall of Fame. They went on to pitch in the big leagues and they were pretty dominant pitchers. We had other pitchers that helped us like David Pieczynski and Jeff McWilliams, and we had some timely hitters. I mean, some fairly clutch players. I don't know that a bunch of them hit real high averages, but we got the right hits at the right time. As always, we were a little lucky. I mean I think every team that wins some championship like that has to have a little luck, but we were consistent, so I think that's kind of what propelled us that year to be successful.”
Some other components according to Thurmond have to do with strong team leadership and players feeding off each other's high energy approach.
“We had a shortstop Robert Bonner, who was second to none in my book. That guy could do anything. The guy sweated like a hog, actually, I don't know any other way to put it. But we'd go play at Texas where they had the AstroTurf and they only had four pits of dirt. Somehow after the game, he was totally covered in dirt," Thurmond said. "He was just a guy that played hard and he was a great shortstop. We had guys that were just very good team leaders, Robert Verde, Kyle Hawthorne, Shelton McMath."
Throughout the years, the atmosphere at Olsen Field has grown larger-than-life.
Many say that a lot of it started with Grubbs and his innovative style as the stadium announcer, taking risks and engaging the crowd.
“He's the one that started just experimenting and creating an atmosphere there that made the students want to come and people want to come and get involved” Hawthorne said. “He's the first time I ever heard anyone do walk up music. He ought to be in the Olsen Field Hall of Fame for what he did for Olsen Field.”
Hawthorne remembers a day Grubbs almost got kicked out of a game by an umpire.
“After what everybody perceived as a bad call, he started playing 'Three Blind Mice' on the intercom,” Hawthorne said. “The umpire turned around and told him to cut it out, did his hand across his throat like to cut it off, that was always funny. The music, it was just kind of music of the era. He tried to find stuff that either met the guy's personality or whatever the situation was in the game. He became very successful.”
Grubbs began many traditions including The Rifleman theme song that is played to this day after every strike out at Olsen Field.
“When I was in the PA booth for the first time, the first year, I looked down and I saw a little metal protrusion coming out of the cinder block wall in the booth and I called the A&M audio people that helped install the sound system and I said, ‘What's this metal jack?’ And they said, 'Well, you can plug a tape deck in and play music during games.'”
Grubbs had about eight cassette tapes he'd play during crucial moments.
“There's so much downtime in baseball you can interject funny things,” Grubbs said. “Coach Tom Chandler and Mark Johnson, they kind of let me have free reign.”
Johnson said Grubbs would also play sound effects like broken glass when opponents would hit a foul ball.
“How did I come up with it? I was just goofy, you know. I wasn't afraid to just try silly things,” Grubbs said. “Some things worked. Some things didn't. But most of the stuff did and it's to the credit of the student body and the fans for picking up on it and running with it. It was amazing. I was just as amazed as anybody else at how it took off.”
Big moments in the 1980s led to the continued development of the atmosphere, most notably John Byington's two home runs against the University of Texas in 1989 to clinch a close victory in the heated rivalry.
“April 16, we beat Texas at Olsen Field in a day/night double header. The place was rocking. John Byington, our third baseman, hit walk off home runs in the ninth inning of both games," Grubbs said. “You're beating your archrival. You're beating them in dramatic fashion. You're trying to win the conference. But I got to tell you, the biggest thrill was how the fans just took to the team.”
Johnson remembers several incredible moments but points back to that day as one he'll never forget either.
“In the backyard when you're a youngster and you're playing, it's just you and the bat and ball,” Johnson said. “You're throwing it up and you imagine hitting a home run to win the ballgame. That's what that moment is like. We had a double header and he did it twice. That was an unbelievable moment.”
Olsen Magic is still alive and evident today. Bubbles after every homerun and the traditional Ball Five chant add to the mystical and intimidating atmosphere.
In 2012, the stadium debuted a set of new renovations, making the official title of the Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park. Blue Bell Creameries donated $7 million dollars to the University for renovations that included updated dugouts, a playground for kids, suites, extra seating for fans with special needs and additional facilities for student athletes.
In one legend of recent years, Aggie baseball players spent a night after their season sleeping underneath the stars on Olsen Field at Blue Bell Park. As they reminisced on their games and teammates, the legacy that Mr. Olsen and teams of the past created surrounded them, illuminating the night sky.
"It truly was ahead of its time. It just gave you the atmosphere of a small major league ballpark. It was the crown jewel at that time," Hawthorne said. "What made it special was everybody wanted to come there and play, and everybody that came there was in awe of it. You go say 'Olsen Field' in collegiate baseball and since about 1980, everybody knows what it is."
Every Opening Day, after the players sprint into the stadium and the National Anthem is sung, the magic begins again. And inevitably, every season more history is made.
“Opening Day is the start of a long season. It's the start of a lot of the special parts and the moments of baseball," Johnson said. “Baseball, they say, is a game made to break your heart. You have to be able to handle adversity. It's always a journey and it's within the journey that the championships are found and the moments are found.
It's exciting to win a championship on the final day and I've done that, but it is within the journey where all the excitements happen. Unbeknownst to the people at the time, that play turned the course for the win on that particular day which just absolutely generated and fueled the team and made them believe. It's funny how moments can do that and it all starts on Opening Day.”