HAILSTATEBEAT: Around The Stadium For MacNamee's Walk-Off Winner

Becky Mock was working off some nervous energy as she walked around Dick Howser Stadium. A dedicated Mississippi State baseball fan who has been something like a second mother to dozens of players over the years, she was waiting out a fairly stressful two-and-a-half hour rain delay. Her Bulldogs were down 2-0 to Florida State, and whenever play resumed, there was only one inning left. FSU would bat first, then MSU would have one last shot in the bottom of the ninth. The winner advanced in the Tallahassee Regional. The loser would see their season end right there.

Becky's path took her near the area where many of MSU's players were gathered shortly before the delay ended. She heard shouts of confidence from the group, cheers and yells as the guys encouraged each other. All of the sudden she was grabbed and spun around by one of the yelling voices. Konnor Pilkington, a star junior pitcher for MSU, was as filled with "excitement and energy" as Becky had ever seen him.

"We got this!" Pilkington reassured her. "We only need one inning. All we need is one!"

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Mason Ramsey is the yodel kid.

Don't worry, this is going somewhere.

Mason Ramsey is the yodel kid who unexpectedly gained fame for a video of his yodeling, and not long after it came out, someone made an electronic dance remix of the tune. MSU's athletic marketing department decided to play the remix one day at a baseball game, turning the tune on while MSU was trailing and Ole Miss had a pitcher warming up in the ninth. A few minutes later, State's Luke Alexander hit a walk-off home run to win the game and the series.

Since then, MSU has only played the song during opposing pitcher warmups when the Bulldogs are trailing in the ninth. And it's resulted in a win every time, leading to the team embracing the yodel as its rally cry.

Naturally, during the rain delay in Tallahassee while MSU's team was gathered in a weight room hanging out and watching the exceedingly average film Grown Ups, someone started playing the yodel kid remix.

"It was really relaxed and laid back," junior Jake Mangum said of the moment. "Even though we were three outs away from our season ending, we were watching Grown Ups in the weight room."

"And listening to that yodel remix," junior Elijah MacNamee interrupted to remind his teammate.

"Yes, Mason Ramsey, thank you," Mangum amended. "Thank you, Mason Ramsey."

A few minutes later when MSU returned to the dugout, Mangum was seen standing at the front singing his own cover of the song.

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Jim Ellis is MSU's long-time radio announcer, and he doesn't believe in that stuff, as he quickly exclaimed when told the story of the lucky yodel song. He believes in baseball players playing baseball.

He also, however, believes in precedent.

During the rain delay, Ellis was talking with Jason Walker from MSU's ticketing office. They were remembering a similar such situation the Bulldogs had been in before, back in 2011 when MSU was trailing in the ninth inning and facing elimination against the Florida Gators in game two of a Super Regional. As loyal Bulldogs know, Nick Vickerson hit a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth to beat UF and keep State's season alive that day.

"Well," Walker mused, "maybe we can do it again."

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Gary Henderson is MSU's interim head coach, a unique position he found himself in less than one week into the 2018 season back in February. Now, it's early June, and any game could potentially be his last as the head coach.

After the delay, he first watched as his sophomore reliever Riley Self got through the top of the inning with relatively little trouble, giving up zero runs and keeping the deficit at two runs.

Then, in the bottom of the inning, the last chance for his team, for his season, two of his batters were walked and two went down as outs. Mangum was on second base as a result of a walk. Junior Hunter Stovall was on first for the same reason. And MacNamee was at the plate with two outs, two strikes, two on, and a chance to do everything from win the game outright to end the season right there.

"I nudged [assistant coach Jake] Gautreau," Henderson recalled, "and I said, 'Hey man, Mac can run it up the scoreboard right here'. We say those things in the dugout all the time, but that happened. I'm not calling the shot, but I'm saying there's belief. I wasn't going to go down the other path."

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Stacy Mangum is Jake Mangum's mother. She was on her feet in the stands when MacNamee was at the plate. She was standing next to MSU's associate athletic director Rhett Hobart, clutching a decorative ladybug pinned to her shirt, eyes darting back and forth between her son at second, the pitcher on the mound and MacNamee at home.

Down at second base. The younger Mangum was switching his gaze back and forth between the pitcher and his teammate at home.

"I'm standing on second with a 1-2 count," Mangum said. "Mac steps out. I kinda took a deep breath like, 'Oh gosh, Mac, get this done for us, I don't want to go home.'"

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Elijah MacNamee is the hero of this story. Standing at home plate where a fastball had just sped past him, he heard the swell of the crowd around him, the noise growing into an echoing din around the stadium. Leaving his left hand on the bat as it hung in the air over his shoulder, MacNamee removed his right hand and held it out, palm facing the umpire, signaling that he wanted a brief timeout from the battle between he and the pitcher.

"He had a rhythm going," MacNamee said. "With all their fans standing up and going crazy, just out of anyone's instincts, your emotions start going everywhere, so I stepped out of the box and took a breather. Then I got back in the box and said 'keep fighting.'"

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Jake Mangum saw the next pitch coming before it even happened.

"I saw the change up in his glove," Mangum said. "I wanted to scream at him that a change up is coming."

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"That pitch was there all day," MacNamee confirmed. "Change up. I just told myself to scoot up far as I could in the box and see it out. I knew after the fastball before that he was coming with something. He was all over the change up."

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Mike Martin is a legend in college baseball, the decades-long coach of Florida State baseball who built the Seminoles into the power they are today.

He saw that pitch coming, too. And it's exactly what he wanted. Low and outside, the change up that had been working all day for the pitcher who had thrown every pitch of the game.

"He knows he made the right pitch to the right spot," Martin said. "For a guy to hit that ball… It was a great pitch. Best you're gonna get out of that is a ground ball, usually."

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And it was a great pitch. But it was a great pitch that MacNamee knew was coming. It was a great pitch that MacNamee knew he was going to put over the outfield wall before he even made contact. That's when the ball came his way.

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Ethan Small is a junior pitcher and typical Saturday starter for MSU. Small pitched a stellar six innings against FSU and was watching from the dugout when MacNamee's bat cut through the air toward the 1-2 pitch.

"I blacked out," Small said.

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Ellis watched the pitch and the swing from his seat in the radio booth as he made the call on the final play of the game.

"And the pitch… and here's a ball in the air. Deep in the outfield. Got a chance, got a chance…"

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Meanwhile, MacNamee was finishing the swing he knew would win the game.

"To be completely honest, it was one of those things," MacNamee said. "Out of his hand, I knew … At the plate it just looked like it was right there. I hit it and I knew it was gone. I blacked out and didn't even know what just happened. I felt like I was running down the third base line. Then I realized: I'm rounding first and I just won the game."

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"Gone!" Ellis roared into the microphone. "Three-run homer! MacNamee! MacNamee, leaping around the bases. Mississippi State has shocked Florida State and will stay alive and play some more in 2018."

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"The ball went off and I just turned to Rhett like, 'We won!'" Stacy Mangum said. "And we just jumped and jumped and jumped."

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The ball had flown over the left field wall in front of the scoreboard, scoring the three runs MSU needed to beat FSU, to stay alive and to fulfill the destiny they so fervently believed was theirs.

"It's just one of those things where you believe in yourself and your team that good things are gonna happen," MacNamee said.

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After the game, as players and fans mixed together outside MSU's dugout, Konnor Pilkington saw Becky Mock nearby. With a big smile on his face, he yelled a reminder of what he had so confidently stated during the rain delay.

"I told you all we needed was one!"

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"This year's been a crazy one," Mangum mused as he tried to make sense of the finish. "This team fights … This team's an emotional roller coaster … We're bulldogs. It's nothing you can really explain. This team has been a lot of fun to watch in big games.

"We're not done yet."

Mississippi State University Athletics

HAILSTATEBEAT: Around The Stadium For MacNamee's Walk-Off Winner

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Luke Alexander

Elijah MacNamee

Jake Mangum

Konnor Pilkington

Riley Self

Ethan Small

Hunter Stovall

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