Wabash College Athletics

Presented by Jackson Blevins '20

It’s a true honor for me to welcome Michael H. Maddox to the stage. All baseball players are obsessed with numbers, and Mike Maddox put up big-time numbers.
 
From what I’m told by alumni, Mike, baseball was a little different in the late 70s and early 80s than it is for players like me. Last year we played in almost 50 games, competed in and won our league’s post-season tournament, and traveled by charter bus to all of our games.
 
In your time, there were rickety old vans that the players drove; Wabash competed as an independent, making post-season play almost impossible; bad weather stole about half your games; and your pre-season workouts were held in the Armory — where the pitcher was in one room and the batter in another. Knowing those things makes your career that much more remarkable.
 
You were a four-year letterman, Most Valuable Player in 1978 and 1980, and in 1978 you became Wabash’s first — and only — American Baseball Coaches Association First Team All-American. That’s the year you set a Wabash record by hitting .471 – a record that still stands today. Your lifetime batting average of .368 is still the seventh best ever in Wabash history and you rank 15^th in slugging percentage.
 
It is my honor, on behalf of the National Association of Wabash Men, to induct you into the Wabash College Athletics Hall of Fame.