Our fifth inductee to the 2017 Hall of Fame class is back-to-back SEC Champion and standout third baseman Philip Still.
2017 MSU Sports Hall of Fame Class: Phil Still Honored
November 02, 2017 | Baseball, HailStateBEAT
By: Bob Carskadon, HailStateBEAT
Note: Every day this week, we will recognize a member of the 2017 Mississippi State Sports Hall of Fame Class. The class will be formally inducted at a gala Friday night at the Palmeiro Center's Bryce Griffis Boardroom and recognized at halftime of the MSU-UMass game Saturday in Davis Wade Stadium. Festivities get underway at 5:30 p.m. Friday and will include a cocktail reception, private autograph signing, seated dinner and awards ceremony. Tickets are available for purchase at msumclub.org for $100 per person. Proceeds benefit the MSU M-Club Alumni Association.
Scrolling through the Mississippi State baseball record books is like reviewing a Who's Who of collegiate baseball.
Clark, Brantley, Maholm.
Showalter, Renfroe, Palmeiro.
The list goes on and on, spanning decades, reminding readers of broken records, World Series runs, SEC Championships and All-Everything accolades. The program has had 18 first-team All-Americans, not to mention countless second-team and honorable mention recipients. Nearly all of those honorees are names known by even the most casual of fans, Brent Rooker the latest in a line trailing back over 50 years.
But one of the greatest is a name only known by the more dedicated MSU baseball fans – a shame, considering Phil Still is one of the best to ever wear the Maroon and White, something current MSU athletic director and former Bulldog Baseball player and head coach John Cohen knows well. That's why he's so thrilled to see Still posthumously inducted into the MSU Sports Hall of Fame this week.
A third baseman for head coach Paul Gregory's Bulldogs from 1968-71, Still was the catalyst for one of the most important, meaningful and symbolic seasons in MSU history. His career and those of his teammates at the time helped set the foundation for all of the greats who would follow for the next 40-plus years.
MSU won back-to-back SEC Championships in the 1970 and 1971 seasons, and after taking the regular season conference crown in '71, the Bulldogs, for the very first time, made it to the College World Series. Still, a senior standout for Gregory's club, led the way.
The Bulldog third baseman very nearly pulled off the triple crown, which would have been the first in SEC history, as he led the entire conference in home runs (11), runs batted in (37) and runs scored (42). Still also had team-highs with 53 hits and nine stolen bases over the course of the season. For his efforts, he was named a first-team All-American and went on to be picked in the ninth round of the MLB Draft by the New York Yankees.
Perhaps it is a fault of Still's era that his name is not uttered with the same reverence as the heroes who followed him. Not even mentioning the lack of TV and national attention the modern era has enjoyed, with fewer games being played in a season, Still never had the chance to rack up numbers like those for whom he set the table. A scan through MSU's top-10 lists turns up no results for the Bulldog great, and it's only by searching through yearly leaders that Still's name can be found.
Finding those lists, however, also shows how versatile a player he was and how much he meant to his team both offensively and defensively. In fact, the only record he still holds today is one of his most impressive – the all-time best single-season fielding percentage by a third baseman at .972.
Still's name may not be a common one when recounting the heroes of Bulldog baseball, but it certainly should be. His career is worth celebrating, and his final year at MSU is as impressive and as meaningful as any single season in school history, and that's at the place home to the only two triple crown winners the SEC has ever seen. Perhaps his enshrinement in the MSU Sports Hall of Fame this weekend will bring renewed life to the legend of Phil Still.
Note: Every day this week, we will recognize a member of the 2017 Mississippi State Sports Hall of Fame Class. The class will be formally inducted at a gala Friday night at the Palmeiro Center's Bryce Griffis Boardroom and recognized at halftime of the MSU-UMass game Saturday in Davis Wade Stadium. Festivities get underway at 5:30 p.m. Friday and will include a cocktail reception, private autograph signing, seated dinner and awards ceremony. Tickets are available for purchase at msumclub.org for $100 per person. Proceeds benefit the MSU M-Club Alumni Association.
Scrolling through the Mississippi State baseball record books is like reviewing a Who's Who of collegiate baseball.
Clark, Brantley, Maholm.
Showalter, Renfroe, Palmeiro.
The list goes on and on, spanning decades, reminding readers of broken records, World Series runs, SEC Championships and All-Everything accolades. The program has had 18 first-team All-Americans, not to mention countless second-team and honorable mention recipients. Nearly all of those honorees are names known by even the most casual of fans, Brent Rooker the latest in a line trailing back over 50 years.
But one of the greatest is a name only known by the more dedicated MSU baseball fans – a shame, considering Phil Still is one of the best to ever wear the Maroon and White, something current MSU athletic director and former Bulldog Baseball player and head coach John Cohen knows well. That's why he's so thrilled to see Still posthumously inducted into the MSU Sports Hall of Fame this week.
"The common Mississippi State fan might not realize how great a player Phil Still was," Cohen said. "He's one of those unheralded players who is, certainly, one of the all-time Mississippi State baseball greats."
A third baseman for head coach Paul Gregory's Bulldogs from 1968-71, Still was the catalyst for one of the most important, meaningful and symbolic seasons in MSU history. His career and those of his teammates at the time helped set the foundation for all of the greats who would follow for the next 40-plus years.
MSU won back-to-back SEC Championships in the 1970 and 1971 seasons, and after taking the regular season conference crown in '71, the Bulldogs, for the very first time, made it to the College World Series. Still, a senior standout for Gregory's club, led the way.
The Bulldog third baseman very nearly pulled off the triple crown, which would have been the first in SEC history, as he led the entire conference in home runs (11), runs batted in (37) and runs scored (42). Still also had team-highs with 53 hits and nine stolen bases over the course of the season. For his efforts, he was named a first-team All-American and went on to be picked in the ninth round of the MLB Draft by the New York Yankees.
Perhaps it is a fault of Still's era that his name is not uttered with the same reverence as the heroes who followed him. Not even mentioning the lack of TV and national attention the modern era has enjoyed, with fewer games being played in a season, Still never had the chance to rack up numbers like those for whom he set the table. A scan through MSU's top-10 lists turns up no results for the Bulldog great, and it's only by searching through yearly leaders that Still's name can be found.
Finding those lists, however, also shows how versatile a player he was and how much he meant to his team both offensively and defensively. In fact, the only record he still holds today is one of his most impressive – the all-time best single-season fielding percentage by a third baseman at .972.
Still's name may not be a common one when recounting the heroes of Bulldog baseball, but it certainly should be. His career is worth celebrating, and his final year at MSU is as impressive and as meaningful as any single season in school history, and that's at the place home to the only two triple crown winners the SEC has ever seen. Perhaps his enshrinement in the MSU Sports Hall of Fame this weekend will bring renewed life to the legend of Phil Still.
"I think that was kind of the mood of the committee," M-Club President Tyson Lee said. "Obviously, you have so many legends when you start talking about Mississippi State baseball that it can be easy to forget people. We've had so many great players in recent years that unless you go back and dig up some of those historic people from the '70s, it can be easy to miss them. Phil Still is one of those men who deserves to be remembered."
Players Mentioned
OF
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