Wow. He was a memorable guy, that's for sure. I played at Whitman College, a Div 3 school in Walla Walla, WA from 75-78 and Wazzu would come play us in February because for some reason spring comes to Walla Walla before anywhere else in Washington. Anyway, we played on Ankeny Field which is literally in the middle of campus, surrounded by dorms and classroom buildings. The field was tiny: 310 down the lines, probably 380 dead center. The fence was a portable snow fence, about four feet high, unrolled just for the baseball season, then rolled right back up and stored somewhere after the season was over. It was as flimsy as unrolled butcher paper.
The day we played Wazzu my freshman year, about 40 of their players walked onto the field from between two dorms beyond the right field fence. They were all at least 6'3", total studs every one of them. We were this rag tag group of about 18 premed and prelaw guys, and as soon as we saw them one of the other freshmen said "holy you know what". Of course they annihilated us but the most memorable moment came when our second baseman got taken out by their baserunner on a double play attempt.
Our coach made a beeline for Brayton and both benches emptied except for us freshmen who just looked at each other, wondering what to do. Our older guys sprinted toward second base, too, and one of the grizzled veterans, a submarine style relief pitcher nicknamed The Bowler (who, by the way, would only seriously warm up one time all season to go into a game) yelled at us to get the F out there and support our team. So we did. I ran out and clinched with Del Sandberg (Ryne's older brother) because he and I had played on the same HS team. We both watched our respective coaches grab each other's jackets and try to pull them over each others head, clinching and moving around like dancing bears. It all ended in a draw, about the only fair fight there was that day.
