Jim Briggs '60 spent 28 years playing and
coaching baseball at Williams and it'd be easy to assume that's all
he did at Williams, but you'd be way off base.
"Briggsy," as he's known to his many friends
and former players, returned to Williams in the mid 1960s to work
as an assistant under John English in the Alumni Office and an
assistant under long-time head coach Bobby Coombs in 1968.
He held so many different titles in the Alumni
Office over the years, including executive director of alumni
relations and development, that it'd be safe to say he did a little
bit of everything there as well as serve as assistant football
coach, director of the outing club, and Williams' first women's
club ice hockey coach.
If you were looking for Briggsy on the
Williams campus during those years, he was wearing all of his
assorted Williams hats and there was every chance someone knew
where he was or where he was headed, because he was everywhere.
When Coombs retired after the 1973 season,
Briggs became head coach. He'd lettered all three years in football
and baseball and as head baseball coach led the Ephs to 216 wins,
three Little Three titles, and won two international tourneys.
Briggs and his family have a longstanding love
affair with the game of baseball as his grandfather Walter O.
Briggs owned the Detroit Tigers at one time and the Tigers played
in Briggs Stadium. Briggsy spent seven summers running tryout camps
and scouting for the Tigers in the early 1960's.
He took part in the centennial celebration of
the Williams-Amherst baseball rivalry back in 1959 as a junior 2B.
The centennial started with a game at Williams on a Friday that the
Ephs won, 4-1.
Then in Amherst on the following day, in the
only collegiate game his father ever saw him play, Briggsy led off
for the Ephs and drew three walks and scored three runs, but it
wasn't enough as Amherst prevailed 11-7 in front of a crowd of some
3,500, which included baseball luminaries Frankie Frisch and Ford
Frick.
"It was quite a celebration and it was fun to
play in front of a big crowd, but it would've been much better had
we won," noted Briggs. "We did win the re-enactment game [reversing
the loss suffered on July 1, 1859 when Amherst beat Williams in the
first college game 73-32] played under the old rules, 11-5. The
teams in the re-enactment game were made up of Williams and Amherst
athletes from other sports teams and we all had a lot of fun
watching them play. The umpire's main job was to make sure the
pitch was thrown where the hitter wanted it to be."
To celebrate the U.S. Bicentennial in 1976 the
City of Pittsfield put on a baseball extravaganza complete with a
parade featuring floats, bands, hundreds of Little Leaguers, Hall
of Famer Lefty Gomez, and yet another re-enactment game.
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Tony Stall '79 celebrates one
of his two HRs in Ephs' 13-12
win over Amherst in 1976 in Pittsfield's Wahconah Park
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"Over 5,000 people were at Wahconah Park that
day," remarked Briggs. "The crowd filled every seat and was
standing down both foul lines. This time the players in the
re-enactment game were backup Varsity players or pitchers not
expected to compete that day."
Thanks to two home runs by Tony Stall '79
Williams won 13-12. "Because this game was at the end of May after
exams we practiced the old rules and Tony got to be quite good at
hitting the ball backwards (every contact with the ball in 1859 put
it in play)," said Briggs. "His two home runs went over the Stadium
behind home plate. Tony was a very good pitcher for us and he later
had a great playing and coaching career in the Australian League
where he was sort of a legend."
Against the Australian National Team, Stall's
team was on the verge of giving up the lead so he warmed up and
made an appearance and shut down the National Team. After the game,
Bill Thurston, yes – the current Amherst coach, who was
coaching the Australian National Team, approached Stall about
joining the team.
"Tony reminded coach Thurston that he was a
Williams grad and had pitched against his Amherst teams," said
Briggs.
Williams went to Poland before winning a
tournament in Czechoslovakia in June of 1990, and again the
Williams-Amherst connection s
urfaced. Williams had joined Haverford to spread goodwill through
the great game of baseball in both countries before the tournament
in Prague.
"In Poland we did clinics for players ranging
from 12 to 45 and they were all hungry for game knowledge," stated
Briggs. "After the clinics each day we played a local team. At the
end of the week undefeated Haverford and Williams played the
championship game, which Williams won 7-2.
"On our way to Prague, we did a clinic in
Ostrava, Czechoslovakia in the complex where Ivan Lendl and Martina
Navratilova had learned to play tennis, but the moment that
captured the team's attention occurred on another day," recalled
Briggs.
The competition was much stiffer in
Czechoslovakia, with teams from the University of Maryland (with
other ACC All-Stars), a German National Team (with several U.S.
Servicemen), Haverford, Athletes in Action, and the Czech National
Team.
The Ephs opened the tourney surprising the
University of Maryland/ACC All-Stars 7-2 with Jeremy Austin going
the distance. Chris Pentz then defeated the Czech National Team.
Next the Ephs lost to the German National Team, but defeated
Haverford with John Whalen pitching and winning the first game of
his life.
After defeating Haverford in a morning game
before the afternoon game with Athletes in Action the Ephs, "took a
bus trip to Auschwitz and that experience had a profound effect on
our team, and me," Briggs noted. "All the way back not one word was
uttered by the 17 players… it was a powerful experience."
Chris Pentz hurled the Ephs past Athletes in
Action to set up a re-match with the Maryland/ACC All-Stars for the
title.
Again Jeremy Austin was sent to the hill and
this time he held off Maryland/ACC All-Stars for 8 2/3 innings
before he ran out of gas. Austin left with the Ephs on top 6-5, two
outs and opposing runners on second and third.
Chris Pentz, who had surrendered 13 hits but
only two runs in the morning win over Athletes in Action, was
summoned to save the day. "Chris told me he had one batter left in
his arm so we decided to go right at their top hitter Johnson, who
was leading the tournament with a .565 batting average," said
Briggs.
With a crowd of over 10,000 looking on and not
much left in his arm Pentz wasted no pitches… setting down
young Mr. Johnson of the Maryland/ACC All-Stars on three straight
strikes. "His last pitch was a great slider that broke just under
the bat," said Briggs. "What a moment."
"I later found out that the batter Chris
struck out was the son of Amherst graduate and great catcher
Charlie Johnson, who I played against when we competed for Williams
and Amherst," chuckled Briggs.
You can't make this stuff up -- this rivalry
will never fade.
