A Unique 2-Sport Athlete
3/23/2011 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
March 23, 2011
RALEIGH, N.C. – Tim Stoddard remembers the first time he picked up a baseball during basketball season, just to loosen up his arm a little. NC State assistant basketball coach Sam Esposito went a little ballistic.
“He told me, ‘You’re here to play basketball,’” Stoddard said. “He told me, ‘That’s your sport right now. Baseball will take care of itself.’ So I never picked up a baseball again until basketball season was done.”
Never mind that Esposito was also the Wolfpack’s head baseball coach. He knew that Stoddard would be ready whenever it was the appropriate time to take the mound, so he didn’t worry about his ace pitcher’s need to throw during the winter.
“Being in such great shape from basketball, the transition was really quite easy for me, when it was time to play baseball,” Stoddard said. “I just had to get my arm ready. I was fortunate that I was always pretty good mechanically.
“It didn’t take me very long.”
Stoddard is in town this week with the Northwestern baseball team, for which he has served as pitching coach for the last 18 years, following an outstanding professional baseball career. NC State beat the Wildcats 4-1 Tuesday evening and the two teams are slated to play again at 3 p.m. today at Doak Field at Dail Park.
For Stoddard, this is his third trip back to Raleigh in the last three years. He returned in December of 2008 for a reunion of NC State’s 1974 NCAA Championship team. And he came here last season with the Northwestern basketball squad when it played NC State in the ACC/Big East Challenge at the RBC Center.
But this is the first time Northwestern has ever played the Wolfpack in baseball, so this trip is a little different, competing against the school where he had such a successful dual sport career.
“For so many years, it’s been hard for me to get back here,” Stoddard said. “But we had the ’74 reunion and I got to see everybody. That was tremendous. Then Northwestern was fortunate enough to play down here in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge. They let me jump on the plane and come back for that.
“For all the years I haven’t been able to be here, it’s good here recently because I’ve been able to come back. We’ve tried to come here and play baseball through the years, but this is the first time we’ve been able to work it out.”
Stoddard is unique in NC State athletics annals in that he helped the Wolfpack win five ACC titles (three in baseball, two in basketball) and an NCAA title (in basketball), making him one of the most decorated dual-sport athletes in school history. Few in the modern age, other than New York Yankees pitcher Andrew Brackman, have even attempted to play both basketball and baseball during their college careers.
He’s also unique in that of the 16,838 men to ever play major league baseball and the hundreds of thousands of student-athletes who have played men’s college basketball, Stoddard is the only person to have won a college basketball championship and a World Series ring, which he did with the Baltimore Orioles in 1983.
Only one other person, outfielder Kenny Lofton, has ever competed in both a Final Four and a World Series. Coincidentally, they both played at East Chicago (Ind.) Washington High School.
Stoddard played basketball for John Molodet, the brother of former NC State All-America guard Vic Molodet and a member of the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, along with such Wolfpack legends as Everett Case, Dick Dickey, Sammy Ranzino, Vic Bubas, Norm Sloan, Pete Auksel and Stoddard’s former teammate Monte Towe.
Stoddard is also a 2011 inductee into that hall of fame, both as an individual and as a member of the 1971 East Chicago Washington team that went a perfect 29-0 to win the Indiana high school championship. He was also a 2006 inductee into the Indiana Baseball Hall of Fame.
The NC State memories flooded back as soon as he stepped foot on campus Monday evening. Stoddard was a starter on the 1974 title team, splitting time with Phil Spence at the power forward and playing alongside David Thompson, Tommy Burleson, Towe and Mo Rivers.
He was an integral part of both the undefeated 1973 team (27-0) and the championship squad (30-1), providing defense, rebounding and alley-oop passes to Thompson. People forget that Stoddard, playing from the wing position, probably threw more of those crowd-pleasing passes than even Towe.
“Really, all you had to do was throw it somewhere up around the basket and as long as it wasn’t directly over the rim, David was going to find a way to catch it and put it in,” Stoddard said. “It was something we didn’t have to practice a whole lot. I probably got the chance to throw it a little more because of the angle. Monte was straight on the basket most of the times and I was off to the side.
“It was easy to do with able to David being able to outjump everybody.”
And Stoddard knew that getting the ball to Thompson, by whatever means necessary, was better than taking the shot himself.
“Realistically, if you look at my career statistics, you’ll see that shooting was not my strength,” Stoddard said. “I prided myself on my passing and defense and rebounding more than my scoring. And the odds were a lot greater that if David had the ball, we were going to score.”
Stoddard eventually gave up basketball for baseball after being drafted by the Chicago White Sox in the winter phase of the 1975 draft. But he had to think hard about what sport he wanted to play.
“The White Sox made me a decent offer that would speed me along to the big leagues,” Stoddard said. “I thought I could’ve played in the NBA. I still think that. The fact that scoring wasn’t my strength made me think about which sport I could play longer, so I chose baseball.
“I don’t know if it was the right thing … There were a lot of guys that went on to the NBA that I played with and against. I’d like to think I could’ve competed there. I chose this path and it worked out well.”
For more than 12 years, Stoddard played for the White Sox, Orioles, Chicago Cubs, San Diego Padres, New York Yankees and Cleveland Indians. He pitched in 485 games, all in relief, and compiled a 41-35 record with 76 saves. Of his three career hits, one was a home run for the Padres in 1986 and the other was a run-scoring single for the Orioles in the 1979 World Series. He is the first player in baseball history to drive in a run in his first World Series at bat.
As for his place in history as the only person to win titles in two diverse sports, Stoddard says: “They’re both highlights. You can’t say one is better than the other. When you’re in college, the ultimate goal is to win the NCAA championship. We were fortunate enough to do that. When you go on to professional sports, in baseball the ultimate goal is the World Series. I was fortunate enough to win that too. I don’t think you can put one above the other. They are equal, different parts of your life.”
After retiring in 1989, Stoddard was in two movies, “Big” and “Rookie of the Year.”
He joined Northwestern’s baseball team in 1995 and has helped the Wildcats win two Big Ten baseball titles. He’s had 12 pitchers drafted into professional baseball, including current Houston Astros starter J.A. Happ.
“It’s been a joy,” Stoddard said. “I’d like to think I have something share with the kids. I’d like to think I do a good job of teaching them how to pitch and to play and approach games. For me, it’s still fun to put the uniform on.
“I still like to think that I’ve never had a real job. My job is to put on a uniform and go sit at a grass field. I can’t think of a better time anybody can have than I’ve had throughout my career. NC State was a major, major part of that. I can’t be more thankful to Norm Sloan and Sam Esposito for coming to recruit me and to ask me to play here.”
• By Tim Peeler, tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.