Some things you can’t make up.
The first Pac-10 baseball game Arizona ever played — March 1, 1979, at old Wildcat Field — featured UA junior first baseman Wes Clements. Arizona beat Stanford, 6-5.
The first Pac-10 championship ever won by Arizona, any sport, May 11, 1980, also at Wildcat Field, again featured Clements, who, by the way, went 4 for 6 with a home run, as the Wildcats routed ASU 22-4.
Greg Hansen is the longtime sports columnist for the Arizona Daily Star and Tucson.com.
“We play our best under pressure,’’ Clements, a junior-college transfer from Hawthorne, California, told the Star that day. “This was the most pressure all year. It all came together.’’
Those long-ago words were eerily similar to those spoken by Arizona’s happy baseball players Saturday night.
On Saturday, Clements, now 65, found himself in the press box at Hi Corbett Field as the analyst for the Pac-12 Networks’ broadcast of the Arizona-Oregon State regular-season finale. After Oregon State crushed Arizona twice on Thursday and Friday, Saturday’s matchup became a true conference championship game.
Wes Clements of University of Arizona baseball team is greeted by fans at Tucson International Airport in June 1980, after the team returned to Southern Arizona from its victory the 1980 College World Series. Clements, a key part of that 1980 team that won the first Pac-12 baseball title in UA history, was in the booth at Hi Corbett Field on Saturday night as part of Pac-12 Networks’ broadcast team for the Wildcats’ most recent (and final) Pac-12 conference championship.
It was as if the baseball gods hand-picked Clements, inducted into the UA Sports Hall of Fame in 2013, to be the voice of the league’s last regular-season game, any sport, its last of 767 regular season league championships.
It was drama, plus. It was like something out of “The Natural.’’ All that was missing was a bolt of lightning.
After the Wildcats rallied to beat OSU 4-3 on Brendan Summerhill’s crowning bottom-of-the-ninth double — a walk-off to cap Arizona’s 46 seasons of Pac-10/12 sports — Clements watched as someone unfurled a large, dark blue Pac-12 Champions banner that was displayed amid a wild on-field celebration.
“You never forget a championship,’’ said Clements. “Never.’’
Arizona finished with 65 Pac-10/12 championships. That’s a lot of remembering.
Clements would know. His journey through baseball is like something out of “Bull Durham.’’ He played 11 years in the minor leagues, hitting 173 home runs but never reaching the big leagues. He played for the Tucson Toros, the Beloit Brewers and the Tulsa Drillers. Clements managed in Double-A, Single-A and in the Mexican League. Recently, he has been a sports-talk radio host in Los Angeles, as well as an analyst for Pac-12 Network.
After all that, after arriving at the UA in the fall of 1978 for the school’s inaugural year in Pac-10 sports, becoming a key factor on the UA’s 1980 College World Series championship team, Clements was at the scene Saturday of one of the most unforgettable moments in his alma mater’s sports history.
It was like Annie Savoy’s character in “Bull Durham’’ saying “I believe in the Church of Baseball.’’
On Saturday, the UA’s ‘’I-believe’’ baseball prayers were answered. The team picked to finish ninth in the Pac-12 preseason poll won it all, a piece of baseball magic made possible by a flurry of walk-off, bottom-of-the-ninth rallies. It’s a team coached by Chip Hale, a man who has played more baseball games than anyone in UA history, a man who seems sure to be voted the Pac-12 coach of the year this week, thus becoming the only person in league history, any sport, to be a Pac-12 Player of the Year and Pac-12 Coach of the Year.
If you were writing a book documenting 46 years of Pac-12 sports, you couldn’t have a better last chapter.
Arizona head coach Chip Hale celebrates with his Wildcats on their walk-off regular season Pac 12 championship after beating Oregon State 4-3 at Hi Corbett Field Field on Saturday night.
“Last night was the first time in 10 years of broadcasting I had to check my emotions when that ball found the gap,’’ Clements said Sunday. “ I wanted it so bad for Chipper and the boys.’’
First game. Last game. First championship. Last championship. Chipper and the Boys now will find their place in UA sports history, with Candrea and the Champs, Lute and his Final Fours, and so many more champions, from Frank Busch and Annika Sorenstam to Terry Francona and Clancy Shields.
Just as Arizona unfurled its championship banner on Saturday, Francona, star of Arizona’s first NCAA championship at the 1980 College World Series, walked across the infield at Hi Corbett Field. How fitting.
What a ride, huh?
Winning 65 league championships is no picnic in the Pac-10 or Pac-12, at any time in any sport. Tucson should know that as well as anyone. Ask Washington State. It won just six titles across 46 years.
Since 1978, Tucson has been gifted to watch the great John Elway, Stanford quarterback, guide the Cardinal to a first down on the Arizona 12-yard-line with 57 seconds remaining in 1981. Arizona was protecting a 17-13 lead. On three consecutive passing plays, Arizona stopped Elway. On fourth down, future College Football Hall of Fame linebacker Ricky Hunley knocked Elway off his feet. Game over.
UA head coach Larry Smith is carried off the field at Arizona Wildcats at USC Trojans on Oct. 10, 1981 in Los Angeles. Arizona won, 13-10
A week later, Arizona stunned No. 1 USC at the Los Angeles Coliseum.
What a ride, indeed.
In 1996, Stanford’s soon-to-be-legendary Tiger Woods stepped to the tee at the Arizona PING Intercollegiate tournament at Arizona National. Woods won eight of the 13 tournaments he played at Stanford, but on that week in the Tucson foothills, he finished six strokes behind Arizona All-American Ted Purdy.
The 46-year ride in the Conference of Champions (thanks, Bill Walton) included a 1984 showdown at Wildcat Field (eventually renamed Jerry Kindall Field and Frank Sancet Stadium) when No. 2 USC’s lineup included the Big Unit, Randy Johnson, future MLB home run king Mark McGwire and all-conference catcher Jack Del Rio, later to be head coach of the Oakland Raiders.
McGwire hit two tape-measure homers that weekend, but Arizona swept the second-ranked Trojans and their litany of stars. The UA’s leadoff batter that week was an unknown freshman second baseman named Chip Hale. Who knew?
We’ve seen Arizona break Stanford’s 48-game Pac-10 winning streak in women’s basketball, 1997, a night of enduring memories when the UA’s Reshea Bristol buried a 3-pointer at the buzzer in a 91-90 game. Celebration? UA coach Joan Bonvicini jumped into her team’s dogpile at midcourt.
We’ve also seen the other side of happiness across those 46 years.
In 1989, former Arizona football coach Larry Smith, the man who overturned the domination of ASU’s football program from 1982-86, returned to Arizona Stadium, seeking a third straight Rose Bowl berth. Some fans held up posters that read “TRAITOR.’’
After the Trojans won that afternoon, 24-3, Smith was carried off the field, looking into the bleachers while giving a two-finger “Fight On’’ salute.
“The specialness of me being here has worn off,’’ Smith said. “But a part of me will always be here.’’
In some ways, Smith’s words define Arizona’s 46 years in the Pac-10/12. The specialness of the soon-to-be-defunct league will someday wear off, but Brendan Summerhill’s walk-off double to win Arizona’s 65th league championship will surely summon happy memories for the next 46 years.
What a ride, huh?
Trailing 3-2 in the ninth inning of their last-ever Pac-12 baseball game, the Arizona's Brendan Summerhill hit a two-run RBI double to walk-off the Wildcats not just to a win, but also the conference's 2024 regular-season championship. (Courtesy Pac-12 Networks)
