College Baseball: Rowan natives celebrate Wake's 1955 title

By Mike London

mlondon@salisburypost.com

There are times when humans are permitted a brief glimpse of the future, and Salisbury native Bob Waggoner, Wake Forest's first baseman, knew what was going to transpire well before it actually happened.

The time was June 10, 1955. The place was Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha, Neb. The weather was cold.

Waggoner had been told to anticipate 100-degree temperatures, but bone-chilling rain and hail pounded down after the fifth inning of Wake Forest's opener in the College World Series against Colgate.

Play was suspended for 78 dreary minutes.

Most of the crowd departed, but the field was deemed playable after a generous sprinkling of sand.

Colgate lefty Larry Bossidy mowed down the Deacons before and after the storm. It was still 0-0 when he walked Waggoner on a 3-2 pitch to start the eighth inning. Wake pitcher Jack McGinley's sacrifice bunt moved Waggoner to second base. As Waggoner stood on the bag, he thought about how no team had ever lost its first game in the double-elimination event and come back to win it.

He also considered the perilous footing around third base and realized it would cost him a precious half-second if he had to try to score on a single.

Then he saw the future.

"It occurred to me any play at the plate was likely to be close because of the field's condition, and it was likely any hit would be shallow because Bossidy had only given up one hit and their outfield was playing in," Waggoner said. "I decided to try and knock the ball out of the catcher's mitt with my foot, while sliding, if the ball arrived at the same time I did."

With two out, Luther McKeel dumped a hit over second base. The center fielder charged the ball, as Waggoner charged gingerly around the treacherous third-base bag and steamed toward the plate.

After that, it happened just as he had imagined. The ball arrived in the catcher's mitt as Waggoner slid. His foot knocked it free.

Art Gore, a National League umpire, spotted the loose ball on the ground. He made the safe call, and Waggoner had scored the only run of that pivotal game.

"It unfolded just as I had envisioned it standing on second base," Waggoner said. "Believe it or not."

That play, that slide and that moment, propelled Wake Forest to a national championship.

Waggoner's long-ago triumph was shared by Wake third baseman Billy Ray Barnes and left fielder Frank McRae.

Barnes was an all-round athlete from Landis. He was the ACC's first 1,000-yard rusher in football before he was an All-Pro running back for the Philadelphia Eagles.

McRae was a prep teammate of Waggoner's at Salisbury's Boyden High. A powerful slugger and intimidating pitcher, he was stopped short of the pros by weak bones.

Waggoner, who now lives in Charlotte, is proud to point out the three Rowan County boys knocked in five of Wake's runs in the series-clinching 7-6 victory against Western Michigan. Today is the 55th anniversary of that title game.

Boyden had strong high school teams when Waggoner and McRae were there, and legend Joe Ferebee was the coach. But those teams didn't get the breaks required to win state championships.

McRae and Waggoner, who played for the Salisbury American Legion team, were teenage rivals of Barnes. Barnes played for Kannapolis, the perennial area power in those days, and he was a driving force on the 1952 Kannapolis team that won a state title.

The Rowan trio was united at Wake, and the Deacons edged Virginia on the last day of the regular season to nip N.C. State by one game for the 1955 ACC title.

There was no ACC tournament then. The next step for the Deacons was a best-of-three series on the road against Southern Conference champ West Virginia.

That series is notable because Wake had its ace, Lefty Davis, on the mound and took a 7-1 lead to the ninth, with a chance to clinch the series, but West Virginia staged a rally for the ages.

Wake still rebounded to win the third game and the series.

Twenty-one hours after returning home, the Deacons were required to travel by rail to Winter Park, Fla, to take on Rollins, the 1954 national runner-up, for the district title. Wake swept Rollins to qualify for Omaha.The charter to Omaha on a twin-engine DC-3 was the first flight for most of Wake's wide-eyed players.

"It was a bit disconcerting to look out the windows and watch oil from the radial engines flow back over the wings and out into the slip stream," Waggoner said.

Oklahoma A&M (later Oklahoma State) was favored to win the Series, but Waggoner's slide in Game 1 kept Wake in the hunt.

Wake faced adversity. It had flown to Omaha without Davis, who was tied down in summer school. Authorities gave permission to Davis to fly to Omaha on a Saturday to pitch Wake's second game in the Series, but that game was postponed until Sunday.

When it got to play, Wake rolled 10-0 over Colorado State behind Davis. Waggoner was part of two double steals and Barnes knocked in three runs, The bad news was the Deacs lost right fielder and captain Tommy Cole to an injury.

That Sunday game was viewed as sinful by Wake's conservative administration, a transgression that would eventually lead to the firing of coach Taylor Sanford.

Wake's third game, a 9-0 loss to Western Michigan, pushed the Deacons to the brink of elimination.

Next was a rematch with Western Michigan. Barnes had a bases-loaded triple, followed by a steal of home. He helped the Deacons build a 10-1 lead and they held on 10-7.

On June 15, Wake beat Oklahoma A&M 2-0 to reach the championship game — a third matchup with Western Michigan.

McRae had been quiet in the series, but the finale was his game. He went 5-for-5 with five ropes and added a sensational catch of a sinking liner in the eighth.

The final out in Wake's victory was a groundball that Barnes fielded at third. His throw to first base to end the series would always remain the biggest thrill of his athletic career — even bigger than winning the 1960 NFL title game.

The Deacons won the World Series despite batting .203 in six games. Then they flew home as heroes to Raleigh-Durham Airport.

Wake's triumph was the first national title in any sport by a North Carolina school and also was the first title won by the ACC.

No ACC team has won the World Series since the Deacons did it.

Florida State and Clemson still have an opportunity to break that drought, and the 1955 Deacs will watch them take the field in Omaha with mixed emotions.

"We have a distinction that is a surprise to all of us," Waggoner said.