Honoring A Slugger, A Southpaw And A Guy That Did It All
May 07, 2022 | Baseball, Joel Coleman
Richard Lee, Frank Montgomery and Pete Young take their rightful places in the Ron Polk Ring of Honor.
STARKVILLE – Three Bulldogs. Three unique skillsets. Three different generations. One common thread.
On a sun-soaked Starkville day, Richard Lee, Frank Montgomery and Pete Young sat in the Adkerson Plaza at Dudy Noble Field to take their rightful places in the Ron Polk Ring of Honor. Despite their differences – Lee being the late 90s slugger, Montgomery being the early 60s shutdown southpaw and Young being a late 80s jack-of-all trades – all share in the ability to be labeled as Bulldog greats.
Oh, that, and their shared inability to put into words what it means to now be immortalized alongside the best to ever put on the maroon and white.
"To be included in this group is just overwhelming," Lee said.
"Really hard to explain," adds Young. "So many emotions."
"It's so meaningful, it's hard to answer and put into words," Montgomery chimes in.
The three might not can express it verbally. That's fine. Their talents did plenty of talking during their respective eras.
Lee was one of the most consistent and complete Bulldog bats to ever have his name written in an MSU lineup. His name is all over State's all-time offensive Top-10 lists. Oh, and don't forget how he was instrumental in getting the Diamond Dawgs to the College World Series in back-to-back years in 1997 and 1998.
Montgomery's left arm was something to behold. His career earned run average still ranks second in school history. His 1962 season stands among the best MSU campaigns ever. Montgomery had a perfect 10-0 record that year. He struck out 102 hitters over 92 innings. His ERA stood at a microscopic 0.68.
Then there was Young. Where do you start? Do you talk about his incredible defense at third base? Do you begin with his fantastic bat that by the end of his career, had him first in MSU history for single-season and career doubles? Or maybe the opening topic is the arm that racked up save after save from the mound and led him to the big leagues with the Montreal Expos.
Nah. If we're going to talk about Pete Young, the first lines can only be about the jersey he seemingly put on with it already dirty. That hard-nosed style of play started at a young age and surely put him on a path straight to the plaza where he was honored on Saturday.
"[When] I was little, I'd get a ball," Young explained. "We had a brick house. I would throw that ball, all kinds of different balls – racquetballs, tennis balls, golf balls. I'd throw all kinds of balls [at the house] and it'd come a rain. All of a sudden, now there are puddles in the yard. I'd throw those balls and get it just perfect where I could dive in the water hole, make the catch, get wet, splash and win the game. Yeah, it's been a part of me since I was little. Loved to slide. So yeah, ever since I learned how to play, I didn't like it if I wasn't dirty."
All the dirt, all the mud and all the grass stains eventually elevated Young to among the Mississippi State elite. As fate would have it, two of his biggest fans were the men he was inducted into the Ring of Honor with.
"Pete, I grew up watching him," Lee shared. "He really was a role model and he made me work harder to try and be up here doing what he was doing, seeing how he played."
Young's grit and game helped put Lee on the fast track to an MSU career. Meanwhile, after his own Bulldog tenure was long behind him, Montgomery also had his eyes on Young. In fact, he couldn't keep them off him.
"I had box seats for 15 years over by the third base line," Montgomery recalled. "I left [MSU] in '63 when I signed with the Cardinals and eventually came back in 1987. We bought tickets and there was this guy at third base. I remember going, 'That's my ballplayer right there.' This guy played baseball."
He sure did. And he was the heart and soul of three NCAA Regional teams. And for Young, the team was what his career was all about. That fact came up repeatedly on Saturday.
"To me, this [induction] is not about me," Young said. "It is a solo award, but to me it's more about my teammates. It's more about the teams that I was on while I was here and those guys.
"The individual stuff, it's fine. But it's still about me and my teammates. One of the things my parents taught me was to be the best teammate you can be. I hope that's what I'm known for with my guys."
It was a common theme. Young, Montgomery and Lee now have their own plaques at Dudy Noble, but they all gave reference to the teammates that helped them earn it.
"I was lucky to have some great teammates," Lee said. "I came in here as a freshman…I had a couple of older guys who took me under their wings. I can vividly remember it one day in practice, one of them sat me down and started talking about pitch counts and how the pitcher was throwing his pitches and what he was throwing. It just gave a whole new meaning to at-bats. I've been lucky to have teammates like that to take an interest in me."
Of course, those teammates that helped Lee excel already had a solid foundation to build on. Just ask one of Lee's former coaches from back in Little League – Montgomery himself, in what's another unique tie in the Ring of Honor Class of 2022.
"He was 10 years old, 11 years old," Montgomery said of Lee. "He could hit a ball to right field as far as he could to left field. You can't teach that. That's why his record is what it is. You couldn't pitch to him."
Southeastern Conference hurlers would find that out the hard way only a few years after Montgomery discovered it.
It begs the question though. What if Montgomery in his prime had pitched to Lee in his? What would the result have been?
We'll never know, but we do know this. Few Bulldog pitchers have or will ever have the type of career Montgomery constructed.
His path to Mississippi State started as a youngster.
"My first Little League coach…I have no idea what he knew about baseball but what he did know – and this is high-tech baseball back then – he said OK you're a pitcher," Montgomery said. "He went out and bought some string and some coat hangers or something and he put up four corners. You've got to be able to pitch high and inside, low and inside, high and outside and low and outside. So, I did. That's pretty much all the help we had. When we pitched, you had to figure it out and you were going nine innings."
Well, Montgomery sure figured it out. Then-MSU head coach Paul Gregory was aware, too, and he badly wanted Montgomery in Starkville.
"One day when I came home from baseball practice, there was a letter in the mail," Montgomery shared. "It says, 'Gregory – Mississippi State College'…I open this thing up and it says, 'Dear Frank, I've not had the opportunity to see you pitch this year…I've followed you through the papers and I'd sure like to have you here at Mississippi State this fall. If I fail to see you pitch before school closes, I will see you early in summer and we can talk over scholarship.' Dated April 27, 1959.
"If I hadn't gotten that letter, I don't know where I'd be today."
But Montgomery did get that letter, and the rest is history. He'd go on to coach Lee, who'd grow up to closely observe Young while Montgomery cheered from the Dudy Noble box seats.
Little did they know at the time they'd all be back together on Mississippi State's campus some two-plus decades later to celebrate what they all meant to Diamond Dawg baseball.
Perhaps Young summed it up the best.
"How awesome is this?" he asked aloud, knowing full well he, nor Lee or Montgomery could adequately say.
It was awesome, indeed. Fitting for a trio of awe-inspiring inductees.