Batesole’s 600th win forms historic Fresno State baseball trio. Past players credit attitude

Fresno State and Mike Batesole made history Saturday after a humbling stretch of baseball, the milestone reached with an 8-3 victory over Air Force at Pete Beiden Field at Bob Bennett Stadium in the first game of a doubleheader sweep Saturday.

The win put the Fresno State coach in some rarified air, along with his predecessors at the university as Batesole captured victories No. 600 and 601 at Fresno State.

Fresno State is the only NCAA Division I program in history to be led by three consecutive coaches with 600 or more wins.

Batesole’s predecessor Bennett went 1,302-759-4 in 34 seasons, and Bennett’s predecessor, Beiden, finished 601-268 in 21 seasons.

“This isn’t 600 wins for me, this is 600 more wins for Fresno State baseball,” Batesole said, after the sweep. “That’s the good news. We’ve always talked about how it takes everybody – our administration, not just now but going back to Scott Johnson and Dr. (John) Welty and the ones that hired us here. We’ve done our best to keep it going. Our local community, you just have to listen to the radio and you hear all the commercials and all the people who are supporting us and allowing us to do what we do.

“Our alumni are just off the charts, especially the guys from the ‘80s that are my age. Those are my friends, not just alumni. The Dugout Club has just always been awesome. Our coaches, (Ryan Overland) has been with me for more than a decade and coach (Pat) Waer has been with me for over a decade – Coach Waer has been here for more than half of those (wins).

“And, the thing nobody ever talks about, how about the players? You have to have some pretty dang good players to get that many wins, all three of us coaches.”

Through Saturday, Batesole is 601-462-1 at Fresno State, a .565 winning percentage. He has 857 career victories, which includes his seven seasons at Cal State Northridge.

‘He just breathes winning’

“That’s a feat, for sure,” said former Bulldogs’ left-hander Dylan Lee, who played for the Bulldogs in 2015 and ‘16. “That’s an accomplishment that not a lot of coaches get to. He just breathes winning. I didn’t assume it would happen, but I knew it was coming and soon we’ll be hearing about 700 and 800.”

Along with the wins have come 14 conference regular-season or conference tournament championships, seven trips to the NCAA Tournament and the 2008 College World Series championship.

The Bulldogs have had 85 players drafted by Major League Baseball teams, including New York Yankees star Aaron Judge.

Also, achieved in Batesole’s 18-plus seasons is a large stack of Fresno State diplomas earned by his players over the years.

“What a great crowning achievement for Coach Batesole in his tenure here with us at Fresno State,” athletics director Terry Tumey said. “I congratulate coach, his family and the many student-athletes, assistant coaches and staff that supported him in reaching this milestone.

“An amazingly special moment, and with what Coach Batesole and his team have had to endure this season, it makes this achievement that much more significant.”

Back to playing Bulldog baseball

Fresno State (9-14, 6-8 in the Mountain West) had lost six games in a row and was trailing Air Force 2-0 in the fifth when loading the bases with two outs.

Fresno State’s Ryan Higgins then drilled a 1-2 pitch over the wall in left field against right-hander John Byrnes, who struck out nine in six innings.

The Bulldogs won the second game of the doubleheader 7-1 behind eight sterling innings from left-hander Jake Dixon, who allowed just three hits and four walks while striking out seven.

“Generally, we have about 21 or so games in the fall and we had no fall, scrimmages I’m talking about,” Batesole said. “Then we have another 15 or 16 in January before opening day and we’re finally getting through a lot of those bumps and lessons you have to learn. Today was the first day, the last two practices were the first time we’re actually getting through kind of the ‘I’, ‘me,’ ‘my’ … I have to get ready to play nine innings, I have to get my swings in, and getting to ‘we’ and ‘us’ and Fresno State baseball.

“That was really fun today. We actually played very unselfish.”

Bulldogs from the past know that feeling well, as well as another program staple.

‘Rings and degrees’

“It’s drilled into you from the first day you’re on campus – rings and degrees, and the degree always comes first,” said former Bulldogs’ outfielder Torin Goldstein, who played from 2015 to ’18 on teams that won 132 games. “Most coaches look at the athletics side, and the academics will come later. It was really impressive to me and when you get older and you graduate, you really start to understand what he was trying to do. He was trying to create good men on and off the field. He’s thinking about your future.

“As a kid, all you want to do is play baseball, go on to play professional baseball and make a living doing it that way, but the statistics of that actually happening, Batesole knew very well. But he’s teaching you to be accountable, teaching you how to make a living and every little idiosyncrasy that he drilled into you on the baseball field helped me carry it on into life and working life after baseball. He’s the best at doing that.”

With Batesole, the classroom was between the lines. The Bulldogs who have played for him remember his intensity. “When 6 o’clock hits and it’s game time, there’s nobody like him between the lines,” said catcher Carter Bins, who played at Fresno State from 2017 to ‘19, with 105 wins.

“I remember when we first played Rice, my freshman year,” said Matt Garza, who was a freshman on Batesole’s first Fresno State team in 2003 and was a first-round pick in the 2005 June amateur draft. “We played them first at home, but it was Batesole’s first interaction with (Owls’ coach Wayne Graham, who won 1,173 career games) and he was out there first and it was kind of Bateole’s way of showing, there’s a new sheriff in town.

“I remember that because I was sitting next to (pitching coach Tim Montez) because I was charting the starter that day, Bryan Wolfenbarger, and I remember him saying, ‘Watch Bates, he’s going to go out there and he’s going to reach out and grab Wayne’s hand and it’s a symbolic way of showing there’s a new sheriff in town and I’m going to be there for a while.’ Sure enough, he’s been around. But it was really cool.”

Accountability, and ‘we before me’

But they also remember his ability to build a team and an accountability to one another, a marker the Bulldogs appear to have hit against the Falcons.

“He is such a teacher of the game and always working on fundamentals and kind of teaching the players to be accountable for what they’re doing,” said Steve Detwiler, who played for the Bulldogs from 2007 to 2010, teams that won 155 games. “He really preached team – we before me, and that’s something, as a coach, I teach my guys. When we work together as one, it’s going to go way better than it would if we were to do what you want to do.

“He always preached that. He always wanted his team to be prepared more than anybody and that’s why he recruits the kind of guys that he does – he recruits tough, hard-nosed, bulldogs and that’s why he’s had such success. He knows what he wants and when they get to that program they buy in. It’s just a winning culture. He teaches the right stuff the right way.”

Sometimes, those lessons came with a media-training twist.

“If you were to ask somebody, ‘You really hit the ball well tonight, what were you doing out there?’ It’s really hard to answer that question and not use I, me or my, and it really gets you to think about the rest of the team,” said Steve Susdorf, who played for the Bulldogs and Batesole from 2005 to ’08, winning 160 games and that College World Series championship.

“Well, you know you could say, ‘There were a lot of runners on base. The guys in front of me were doing a great job getting on base.’ It changes the way you think about things and it changes your perspective.

“It’s hard to explain, but I’ve actually taken that approach into work with the team that I work with trying to just tell them that story. I attribute a lot of our success in the College World Series in 2008 to that. That whole group of guys, they were not concerned about themselves, they weren’t concerned about themselves getting drafted, it was all about going out and finding a way to win for Fresno State.”

But it cannot be discounted, given the Bulldogs’ success. And, Batesole is signed through the 2022 season.

“I loved playing for him,” Bins said. “I look back at all the things that he has done for me, now that I’m in my professional career, he has taught me so much about baseball and just about how to go about your business day to day. I look back now and I appreciate all the things that he’s done. At the time, I didn’t really think anything of it, but now, I look back and I’m thankful for everything he has taught me.”

Batesole’s milestone wins at Fresno State

600 – Air Force (8-3), April 10, 2021

500 – San Jose State (16-8), April 30, 2017

400 – UNLV (2-0), April 5, 2014

300 – Nebraska (1-0), March 12, 2011

200 – New Mexico State (6-4), May 4, 2008

100 – Portland (16-5) on March 5, 2006

This story was originally published April 10, 2021 at 5:02 PM.