It was a record 39 years in the making by a man who is simply known as Eleven.
When the 2018 College Baseball season began, Florida State Seminoles baseball head coach Mike Martin had a career total of 1,944 wins under his belt. He needed only 31 wins to tie the all time winning College Baseball record.
Against in state rival Miami on a warm Tallahassee evening on April 28 a 10-1 win over the Hurricanes gave Eleven 1,975 wins to tie him with Augie Garrido. Garrido died March 15 at the age of 79 after suffering a stroke.
But Coach Martin would have to wait for another week before he could claim the record as his own.
On May 5 the Seminoles took on ACC (Atlantic coast Conference) rivals the Clemson Tigers in the first of a three game series. The first six innings of the game went quickly, lasting only an hour and a half with no score.
The Seminoles scored first in the sixth inning with a run and added a second run in the seventh inning via a single run homer.
The Tigers scored a run in the seventh and tied the game up in the eighth. And that is where it stayed…until the 13th inning when Stephen Wells hit one over the fence to give the Seminoles the lead.
In the bottom of the 13th inning – four and a half hours later – the Tigers had a runner on second and two outs when Stephen Wells caught the ball for the final out…and put Coach Mike Martin in the history books.
from Branden Roe’s post on The Animals of Section B Facebook page
In typical Martin fashion, the Coach plays down the accolades aimed at him; instead, putting the focus on the “young men” who comprise his teams.
feature photo credit: By Thomson200 – Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32117683