Will they love State again?

[bully99]

Nor was Grisham, who supposedly loves MSU so much.

[gravedigger]

No, didn't mean that. I guess I just get his posts. There are those who's only intent is to be a dick. His aren't.

Funny, as much as I've read yours, they are about the same.

[bully99]

It was just a fun thread to get State fans thinking about people who might rejoin the family. Wasn't meant as some kind of philosophical debate.

[dawgoneyall]

Polk can go to hell. He won this destination from me when he quit on MSU in 1992. Hope he never set foot on the campus again. Napoleonic‎ bastard.

McMann is and will always be one of the biggest dumbasss in the history of MSU. Not letting Grisham's son walk is beyond stupid. Would hope he returns to his roots.

Was time for Stans to go but he had us relevant for longer than any other MSU coach. Hope he contributes something to MSU.

[maroonmania]

Polk was never about anyone but himself and his players. He never gave a rat's ass about the university. The most self-absorbed coach we've ever had and he has done way too much damage publicly and privately to our baseball program since his departure for me to ever want him to come back. He is VERY lucky his name was left on the stadium.

Grisham got his panties in a wad about his son not being allowed to walk on and so I think he is done with MSU and has no intentions of looking back. Not sure he ever made any public allegiance to MSU prior to that event anyway other than his writeup on the LFL and Dudy Noble from years ago. Seems to be much more in bed with VA and OM than us at this point. I would certainly welcome him back with open arms if he wanted to come back though.

Stansbury, in my book, is welcome back anytime. While I do believe it was time to make the change, Stans seems to be a good guy from all accounts who did accomplish a lot with our BB program during his tenure and who, as far as I know, has not done anything publicly or privately to sabotage Rick Ray and stepped down with his dignity intact. I'm sure right now though he is more focused on figuring out his career path forward than being an MSU basketball icon.

[bully99]

What angered me about Pat McMahon was that he came back to State saying MSU was his dream job and where he always wanted to be and 4 years later he hightailed himself down to Florida. I think Pat could have done great things at State and he wouldn't have been fired either.

I know Grisham owns a house in Oxford, but where is the evidence that he's some kind of big Ole Miss baseball fan.

[Todd4State]

Engie is right about Polk's problem being more about Cohen than Byrne, but he was still royally pissed at Byrne for undermining him. LT always had Polk's back and gave him almost everything that he wanted, and Polk was used to getting what he wanted from MSU.

It goes back to Polk wanted college baseball to be a certain way and played a certain way. I'll tell you- Polk hates Augie Garrido about as much as he hates Cohen. He doesn't like coaches that yell, play small ball, and push things to the limit to win. Polk wanted it to be about having a good college experience and wins and losses didn't matter as much as learning something that day did. If luck is on our side enough, we go to a regional. There's nothing wrong with Polk's philosophy if it's in it's place. But that place isn't the SEC- it's Mississippi College. Cohen is more like Garrido- he probably yells less and he has more power in his lineups, but Cohen is also big on pressure (ie- small ball tactics)- but Polk doesn't want us to have a coach like that because in his mind "it's wrong" and it's not what "we want".

And then that goes back to when Cohen was a player. Cohen was brash, cocky, aggressive, said cuss words when he screwed up sometimes- and Polk doesn't like that. Tommy Raffo was his ideal player- very quiet, well mannered but he could also perform at a high level.

The problem is Polk is OCD about everything being the way he thinks it should be. Most people look for solutions. He wrote 65 page essays about how wrong the NCAA was. Most of what he was worried about with Cohen being our coach didn't happen. Cohen didn't cut all of Polk's players. He didn't end the Diamond Girls. Our pitchers don't throw 165 pitches against Blue Mountain College. Cohen doesn't cuss our players out incessently on the field for making an error or giving up a home run. Heck, our team GPA has increased under Cohen mainly because he tries to find players that can get academic scholarships to get around the 11.whatever rule and then we had an article written about how involved our team was with prayer and church. Cohen is doing the things that Polk was good at better than Polk- including finishing higher in Omaha.

Polk's lack of access to the outside world beyond Dudy-Noble Field killed him as well. Especially with recruiting.

[Todd4State]

What angered me about Pat McMahon was that he came back to State saying MSU was his dream job and where he always wanted to be and 4 years later he hightailed himself down to Florida. I think Pat could have done great things at State and he wouldn't have been fired either.

I know Grisham owns a house in Oxford, but where is the evidence that he's some kind of big Ole Miss baseball fan.

Pat got tired of people telling him what Polk would have done. I don't think McMahon would have done much better myself- we were already starting to trend down even under him. He recruited pitching well- but hitting, not so much. Raffo was the hitting coach under him, and I had concerns even then about Raffo.

If we would have hired Paul Manieri, we would have gone to the next level. But, we didn't.

[maroonmania]

What angered me about Pat McMahon was that he came back to State saying MSU was his dream job and where he always wanted to be and 4 years later he hightailed himself down to Florida. I think Pat could have done great things at State and he wouldn't have been fired either.

I know Grisham owns a house in Oxford, but where is the evidence that he's some kind of big Ole Miss baseball fan.

Believe at this point Grisham is just a Virginia baseball fan. He does maintain a residence in Oxford although I'm not really sure what level of support he gives to OM or MSU.

[bully99]

Come on Todd, you've used that Mississippi College analogy before and it's a bunch of crap. Polk like all people have good and bad sides. Pitching depth was always Polk 's problem in tournament. If Polk ran his program as ruthlessly as Bertman did, he would have national titles.

What's pathetic is that Polk could have solved all of this by retiring after he went to the cws. Larry Templeton would have hired Tommy Raffo and everything else would have been moot. People want to smear Raffo and he was nothing but loyal to State and doesn't deserve the crap said about him.

[maroonmania]

Come on Todd, you've used that Mississippi College analogy before and it's a bunch of crap. Polk like all people have good and bad sides. Pitching depth was always Polk 's problem in tournament. If Polk ran his program as ruthlessly as Bertman did, he would have national titles.

What's pathetic is that Polk could have solved all of this by retiring after he went to the cws. Larry Templeton would have hired Tommy Raffo and everything else would have been moot. People want to smear Raffo and he was nothing but loyal to State and doesn't deserve the crap said about him.

And thank God that DIDN'T happen or our baseball program would have continued into irrelevancy. I like Raffo but in no way do I believe he was the guy we needed to elevate our program.

[Bamboo]

Like my posts are "blindishly supportive ".

How could they be?

[bully99]

What the hell you talking about? And reading some of your past post, all I can say is wow. Predicting Mullen will be fired and you getting depressed reading this site. Real winner there.

[Johnson85]

Who will be the first person to "make up" with Mississippi State. These were big time supporters of State, but have little or nothing to do with State anymore.

1. Ron Polk
2. John Grisham
3. Rick Stansbury
4. None of the above

I'm saying none, because there's lots of bitterness by those guys toward State.

John Grisham will not be a state supporter like he was before. He basically has his name on a program at Virginia. No reason for him to split his resources between there and state. Grisham was plenty generous to MSU back in the day. It's all on Larry Templeton for screwing that up.

I think Rick Stansbury will be back first. I would hope that everytime a state fan sees Stansbury, they are telling him how much they appreciate his time at state (just like I hope people did and do for Jackie). It may be a while if Stansbury has ill will toward Stricklin (no clue if he does or not), but if he doesn't get back into coaching, and state fans show him the proper amount of gratitude (and the administration also once it can do so without potentially being seen as undermining Ray), surely he will enjoy being back around the program.