The Long Beach State Dirtbags baseball team is the college baseball program that represents California State University, Long Beach. Although all Long Beach State sports teams are officially known as the Beach, the baseball team is typically referred to as the "Dirtbags". Their colors are black and gold.
Long Beach State (LBSU) has competed since 1969 in the NCAA Division I Big West Conference (BWC), known at the time as the Pacific Coast Athletic Association. Before becoming a founding member of the PCAA, LBSU participated in the Division II California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) from 1957 to 1969, and before that spent three years as an independent team.
The Long Beach State baseball team gained national prominence in 1989, with the hiring of Dave Snow as head coach. The Dirtbags established themselves as one of the strongest teams on the West Coast. From 2010 to present day, more active Major League professional ballplayers are alumni of Long Beach State than any other school.
Since 1993 the Dirtbags have played their home games exclusively at Blair Field, a semi-professional baseball facility located less than from campus and owned by the city of Long Beach.
History
The McConnell era (1954–1959) In 1954, then 5-year old Long Beach State College asked newly hired P.E. professor John McConnell (a former cross country runner also serving as the school's associate basketball coach) to be the first head coach of the new baseball team. Helming a program with only 14 players on the roster, no athletic scholarships, and a shoestring budget, the team was forced to hold practices on the public field at Whaley Park adjacent to campus. All of the team's first 11 games were played on the road; only towards the very end of the season, when the school's field was finally completed, could the 49ers host their first home game. The young 49ers posted a modest 3–13 record for the 1954 season.
From 1955 to 1956, still hampered by a limited roster and forced to employ a 3-man pitching rotation, the 49ers posted significantly improved records of 17–4 and 18–6, respectively. They were paced by utility man Carl Evans, who would later become Long Beach State's first All-Conference player (after the school's admission to the CCAA).
In 1957 Long Beach State was admitted into the NCAA's College Division (now Division II) after three years of competition as an independent. McConnell remained as head of the baseball program for three more years, accumulating a 48–42 cumulative record in NCAA play and finishing between 3rd and 5th in the conference each year. After the 1959 season McConnell stepped down as coach of the Long Beach State baseball team, however he stayed on as a staff member in the P.E. department for nearly 30 more years. When asked later which accomplishment he was most proud of during his time with the baseball program, he responded it was that 50 of the 57 baseball players he coached graduated.
The Clegg era (1960–1963) Dick Clegg took over the program after McConnell's departure, and almost immediately he appeared capable of taking the 49ers to heights that his predecessor had been unable to. Led by the team's first future Major Leaguer in pitcher Dick Nen, the 1960 team finished the season with a promising 20–14 overall record and a 9–6 mark in CCAA play for a third-place finish in the conference, and there seemed to be reason to hope that the future held even brighter things for the 49ers baseball program. But unfortunately Clegg was unable to reproduce the success of his first season with the club, and under his guidance the 49ers failed to garner another winning season. Clegg's teams accumulated a disappointing 32–65–1 record over the next three years, including an abysmal 6–25–1 record in 1963. This lack of production led to Clegg's resignation following the 1963 season.
The Wuesthoff era (1964–1969) True success came when the program handed the reins to former freshman junior varsity coach, and assistant basketball coach Bob Wuesthoff in 1964. In Wuesthoff's first year as head coach, the 49ers rebounded impressively from the previous year's meltdown by going 31–13, earning the program's first conference championship and first entry into the NCAA National Tournament and setting a school record for wins that would stand until 1979 (The .704 winning percentage wouldn't be topped until 1989). This time, the first-year optimism did not give way to letdown.
Under Wuesthoff, the 49ers finished with a winning record in each of his six years as skipper at Long Beach State, accumulated a 161–101–4 (.613) overall record, and only once finished worse than third in the conference. By the time the 49ers won their second CCAA title in 1969, Wuesthoff was already the most successful coach in Long Beach State's short sports history. But changes came to the school in 1970, when Long Beach State was admitted to the NCAA's Division I. One of those changes came when Wuesthoff announced that he would not return for the 1970 season.
The Gonsalves era (1970–1988) The 1970 season not only marked LBSU's first foray into NCAA Division I, it also marked the first hiring of a team alumni as head coach. Incoming skipper John Gonsalves had played second base for the team from 1964 to 1965, and even earned NCAA all-district honors his senior year. After a mildly distinguished 3-year career in the New York Mets minor league system (netting one selection to the class A New York – Penn League all-star team), Gonsalves returned to his alma mater to take over the reins from his former coach Bob Wuesthoff who was retiring.
At the beginning of LBSU's time in NCAA Division I, and for much of Gonsalves's time as head coach, the baseball program was afforded only 2 scholarships per year, significantly less than the NCAA maximum of 13. In addition, chronic underfunding of the program forced Gonsalves to split time between his coaching responsibilities and fund raising in order to meet his team's basic operating requirements. However, in his first year, despite the team's relatively uninspiring 29–23 overall record, Gonsalves led the team to an 11–4 record in conference play. This was enough to capture the first ever conference title of the newly formed Pacific Coast Athletic Association (PCAA), which sent the 49ers to the NCAA tournament. At season end, Gonsalves received the inaugural PCAA Coach of the Year award. Gonsalves would remain at the helm of the program for the next 19 seasons, and through two conference changes. The first came in 1977, when Long Beach State joined the upstart Southern California Baseball Association (SCBA), an NCAA Division I baseball-only conference consisting of baseball teams from schools that otherwise competed in either the PCAA or the WCC.
The 49ers posted their best year to date in 1979, when the 49ers compiled a 40–22–3 mark that set a new school record for wins and was good enough for a second-place finish in the competitive SCBA (behind Cal State Fullerton, who would go on to win their first national championship that year). They were paced by the team's first ever All-American selection, center fielder Rob Townley. Unfortunately, Gonsalves would never again coach a team to that level of success. Over the next 5 seasons, the 49ers only once posted a winning record or finished better than 4th in the conference. Even the demise of the SCBA and the renewal of PCAA competition (now known as the Big West) in 1985 couldn't change the fortunes of the hard luck 49ers, as they placed seventh in the conference in '85 and eighth in each of the next three years. Over his final 9 seasons, Gonsalves managed only a 205–342–10 cumulative record. After the 1988 season Gonsalves stepped down as head coach, citing physical exhaustion and a desire to spend more time with his family. Gonsalves remained on staff as a professor in the kinesiology department until 2002, and had his jersey number retired in 2001.
The Snow era (1989–2001) Dave Snow was hired as head coach in 1989 after a successful four-year run at Loyola Marymount, where he had led the Lions to two WCC titles and their first ever CWS appearance. By contrast, Long Beach was coming off the worst stretch in program history, going a combined 66–163 over four seasons. Additionally, the team was being forced to play without the benefit a true home field, splitting games between Long Beach City College, Cerritos College, and Blair Field. (Ironically, the lack of a field ended up being a crucial ingredient in the creation of the team's iconic nickname – see below).
Snow set out with the aim of raising the program back to a competitive level. Unexpectedly, that year Snow wound up engineering the greatest single-season turnaround in NCAA history. Long Beach State exploded onto the college baseball scene by winning their first 18 games to start the 1989 season. Just one season removed from a 14–45 record, the reborn 49ers performed a complete turnaround by going 50–15 overall and winning their first conference title in two decades. In the NCAA tournament, the "Dirtbags" went undefeated in their Regional and reached the College World Series, a school first. Though they failed to win a game in the Series, the Dirtbags' improbable run earned Snow NCAA Coach of the Year honors (three years after having won the same award at LMU, making him the first repeat winner of the prestigious award).
The team suffered a regression in 1990, slipping to 4th in the conference and missing the postseason. But the following year Snow led the '91 team to a 46–19 record – good for a 2nd-place finish in the conference and an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. The team again won their regional and advanced to their second College World Series, this time reaching the second round before being eliminated.
From 1992–'94 the Dirtbags won three consecutive Big West titles and reaching the College World Series yet again in '93, for their third CWS berth in five years. 1993 was arguably the Dirtbags' finest season, as the Dirtbags advanced farther in a postseason than ever before or since: 3 outs from a berth in the National Championship Game. After capturing the Big West Title and earning a top 10 ranking in all the major polls, the Dirtbags swept through their regional with four straight wins. In the College World Series, the Dirtbags eliminated Kansas and Texas A&M en route to a semifinal matchup with the LSU Tigers. LBSU and LSU each held one victory going into the rubber match of the series, and the Dirtbags played their way to a 5–3 lead going into the bottom of the ninth inning. But the Tigers used their final at-bats to mount a 3-run rally, eliminating the Dirtbags in dramatic fashion. The Tigers went on to dominate the National Championship Game, beating Wichita State 8–0 for their second national title.
Long Beach State reached the College World Series again in 1998, led by an offense that has been recognized as "the best offensive power in program history." Lefty Mike Gallo turned in a particularly memorable postseason performance, shutting out Big West tournament host Cal State Fullerton in a dominant complete game outing. The following week he again went the distance to stun regional host Stanford 5–1 in Palo Alto. After eliminating Alabama the next day to reach their fourth College World Series, the Dirtbags fought past Florida State and Miami to again reach the national semifinal round. There they were eliminated by Arizona State 14–4, again falling just short of the national title game.