Those of us who were Ithaca College freshmen in the 1963-64 academic year, and cared about baseball, knew the legacy.
Indeed, most of the 14 sophomores on the ‘62 team were still there as seniors, and what they did that spring was not only beyond extraordinary, but also will never be duplicated.
Back then, in baseball, there were no classifications, all college teams played in what was the University Division.
Ithaca, coming off a 6-5-1 season, wasn’t expected to do much, especially after a wet and cold March and early April when the Bombers’ practices were moved across town to the Cornell fieldhouse where the sessions were held nightly from 10 o’clock to midnight.
Still, IC opened with a 9-run win at Penn State and went on to a 15-0 regular season earning a spot in the District 2 Regional where it again beat the Nittany Lions at University Park, this time 7-6. It then downed Gettysburg, 7-4, which made the school of 1,600 from New York’s Finger Lakes one of eight teams in the College World Series.
Yeah, THAT World Series.
The others to gather at Omaha were Michigan, Santa Clara, Missouri, Florida State, Texas, Colorado State and Holy Cross.
In the opener of the double-elimination event, Ithaca downed Missouri, a former national champion, 5-1, before being ousted via two heartbreaking one-run losses, 5-4 to Florida State and 3-2 to Texas.
Still, what the Bombers accomplished 60 years ago was unprecedented. Bob Christina, senior co-captain and catcher on that team, was determined that it wouldn’t become lost in history as seven members of that 26-player squad are already deceased.
Thus, he just released a book “The Season of Their Lives” which recounts how that campaign unfolded.
And, for those in the Southern Tier, a familiar name jumps off the pages.
Olean’s Dick Lindamer was a star sophomore relief pitcher on that team yet is best known locally as a teacher and three-sport coach at Bolivar-Richburg where his baseball team won a Section 5 title and his basketball squad made the New York State semifinals.
But he also enjoyed a 47-year career in his avocation, officiating baseball, capping it by being named NYS Umpire of the Year in 2016.
STILL, the pinnacle of Lindamer’s athletic life was that magical 1962 season.
Now 80, he assessed, “I think we had the right group of guys with a similar drive. We didn’t like to lose … we worked HARD … right time, right place and got some breaks. “Once we got a chance to go to the College World Series, we wanted to prove we could play with the big boys and we did a pretty good job of it.”
“We also had excellent coaching,” Lindamer said of legendary manager Bucky Freeman, a St. Bonaventure alum where he played football, and went 282-82-2 (.773 pct.) in 35 seasons of baseball at Ithaca. “Bucky was such a good man, he explained things, never got too excited, a good strategist and we had good leadership in our two captains Bob Valesente and Bob Christina.
“We had a bunch of blue collar guys and the team chemistry was just perfect.”
And a key component was Lindamer.
“As a sophomore, I didn’t think I was going to get too much of a chance because there were five senior pitchers on that team,” he recalled. “I didn’t know what Bucky had planned for me, so it was exciting for me to be put in that spot (No. 1 reliever), getting called in for some big moments and being able to deliver.
“I always had good control, could spot the ball pretty well and throw strikes and that’s a big part of the battle. But I was still surprised at our meeting when (Freeman) would say ‘such-and-such is starting and you’re the first one in.’ I knew that I could pitch at that level and felt that I could contribute but I got the call in a lot of games to put the fire out or hold on to the lead … that was the role I was put into and was happy to get the opportunity.”
And it was justified.
Lindamer, 5-foot-10 and 175 pounds, pitched in eight games, two of them starts, and went 6-0 with a microscopic 1.56 earned-run average while striking out 42 batters in 40 innings. The only better numbers were recorded by staff ace Roger Freize who went 7-0 as a starter with a 1.36 ERA.
RECALLING the ’62 World Series, Lindamer admitted, “It was so exciting though most of us were a little bit concerned that we might be in over our heads. But that attitude of not liking to lose and having knocked off some pretty good schools like Penn State on the way out there, we got together and said, ‘We can do this thing … this is what we practiced for.’”
He added, “The fans bought into us right away … we were the underdog. It was like playing a home game at South Hill, everybody was rooting for Ithaca College. We had so many people afterward congratulating us and saying what a good team we had.
“The whole experience for me, I’ll never forget. It was exciting, it was a little scary at times but the game starts and those things go away. We had a lot of guys that had positive attitudes, stuck their nose in there and we did pretty well.”
As Lindamer concluded, “My attitude was, put the ball in my hand and I could get anybody out. That’s kind of the attitude we all had … put the uniform, spikes and glove on and we could go out there and play with anybody.”
And they did.
(Chuck Pollock, an Olean Times Herald senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald.com)
