‘A season we’ll never see again’: Former WSU players reflect on 1988 season, John Olerud’s masterful sophomore year

In 1988, Washington State’s baseball team played with an exceptional level of confidence and composure, according to members of that squad.

No matter who they faced, the Cougars believed they had the upper hand. After all, WSU had the nation’s most talented player.

With superstar John Olerud leading the way, the Cougars never doubted themselves.

“We always felt like, ‘We got this,’ ” said Jim Connor, a sophomore outfielder on that team. “We had John and nobody else did. He was the best player in baseball. He was the stabilizer. It was always nice to have Superman close by. We had a backup parachute, regardless of what we did.

“If it was him pitching, we thought we were going to win. If he wasn’t pitching, then great, he could focus on hitting. John freed everyone else up.”

It’s been 35 years since Olerud’s remarkable sophomore year at WSU. His season at the plate and on the mound may be remembered as the greatest individual season in college baseball history.

“We were able to watch a fireworks show every day from ‘Ole’, and everyone else played a complementary role to a season we’ll never see again,” said Randy Snyder, a junior catcher in 1988. “When I think back on that season, I can just remember watching Olerud put on a show, and we were all there to be a part of it and contribute to the show.”

The Spokesman-Review caught up recently with several players from that team to reflect on Olerud’s performance during one of WSU’s best overall seasons .

The Cougars, led by legendary coach Bobo Brayton, went 52-14 – a WSU record for wins in a season – and claimed the Pac-10 North title before bowing out of the NCAA Tournament with a loss to top-ranked Fresno State in the West I Regional tourney.

“We knew we were really good,” said Dave Wainhouse, a junior pitcher then and future MLB player. “We were super confident and knew we could beat anyone. But we had Olerud, right? That was the key. That’s the best player in the country. You always had that security blanket.”

‘It was freakish’

Olerud earned Baseball America’s Athlete of the Year award after becoming the first NCAA player to win 15 games and hit 20-plus home runs in a season.

Olerud, who played at Interlake High in Bellevue, batted .464 with 23 homers, 81 RBIs and 21 doubles. A first baseman, he had five times as many hits as strikeouts.

“I don’t remember him ever having a bad at-bat,” Snyder said. “There was sort of a nice, unspoken, humble confidence to how that team went about business, and it was especially easy to be that way when you saw Olerud destroying every ball that was thrown his way.”

At 6-foot-5 and 200 pounds, Olerud had range as a hitter and a “smooth, easy swing, with explosive results,” Snyder said. “He was so proficient with his control and power.

“It felt like I was hitting a medicine ball and he was hitting a golf ball. That was the difference between how the ball jumped off the bat with Ole versus pretty much everybody else you saw.”

Olerud was also a dominant pitcher, going 15-0 – with five complete games – and recording a 2.49 earned-run average. He struck out 113 batters against just 39 walks.

“Everything he threw moved about a foot and a half,” Connor said. “He lived in a dimension where nothing was straight, and that’s probably why he was 15-0.”

Olerud’s excelled with his change-up , but he also had a pinpoint fastball, and was accurate with curveballs and sliders. His ability to pick off runners at first base was “by far the best I’ve ever seen,” said Tom McGraw, a sophomore pitcher in 1988.

“He was picking guys off and they weren’t even doing anything,” McGraw said. “That’s an incredible weapon he had that nobody else did.”

Olerud’s consistency on the mound made life easy for Snyder.

“As a catcher, he always allowed me to call the game the way I felt it needed to be called,” Snyder said. “You knew you had a hitter set up for a certain pitch and here it came, perfectly thrown. … He gets a lot of credit for the ‘Nintendo’ stats he put up as a hitter, but he was dominant as a pitcher, too. It never seemed like he was in trouble. He was only a sophomore, so it wasn’t like he’d developed as much as he could as a pitcher, but he just had an incredible year.”

Olerud set or matched 12 WSU program records. Many still stand today – hits (108), total bases (204), on-base percentage (.555), slugging percentage (.876), OPS (1.432), innings pitched (122⅔) and wins.

WSU teammates remember Olerud as humble, unassuming and soft-spoken . He never acted “like a superstar player of the year,” Snyder said.

“It wasn’t just the numbers – it was his demeanor,” Connor said. “Sitting in the dugout next to him, no matter who we were playing or what the situation was, he was the same guy. Half the time he was probably thinking about an engineering test or something. He never got ruffled, and that rubbed off on everyone. No one got too high or too low. Frankly, it was because we had John Olerud.”

In personality and performance, Olerud was the Cougars’ “ace in the hole” throughout the 1988 season, McGraw said.

McGraw shared an example to sum up Olerud’s dominance in ’88. WSU was tied with an unspecified opponent in the bottom of the ninth inning, so Brayton called on his sophomore stalwart.

“I remember Bobo specifically telling (Olerud), ‘Why don’t you hit one out of here so we can go home?’ ” McGraw said. “Then he hit one out. It was freakish. Having him on the team, you knew you had the upper hand for that reason, and he was so mild-mannered about it.”

‘It was a dynamic team’

Olerud’s exploits headlined the season, but he had an “incredible cast of characters supporting him,” said shortstop Rob Nichols, a sophomore in 1988.

“We had hitting, pitching and defense,” Nichols said. “It was really magical. I never entered a game thinking we were going to lose, and I was always surprised if we did.”

The Cougars’ offense was deep and efficient. Olerud’s efforts at the plate overshadowed some impressive numbers from his teammates.

“Watching that lineup – man, it was fun,” Connor said.

The Cougars hit .327 as a team and averaged eight runs per game. Players other than Olerud had individual hitting seasons that rank among the best in program history.

Connor batted .391 with 22 doubles and 12 home runs. His 1988 season ranks third in WSU history in hits (91), fourth in total bases (157) and fifth in runs (70). Senior designated hitter/first baseman Steve Webb drove in 71 runs (sixth in WSU single-season history). Nichols, outfielder Joe Urbon and third baseman Pete Blanksma each hit better than .320.

“It was crazy for me, because I thought I had an All-American type year, then you look at John’s stats and it’s like my year meant nothing,” Connor said . “It was just unbelievable what this guy did.”

WSU’s pitchers had an ERA of 3.75. The staff struck out 364 batters against 218 walks. Opponents hit .260 .

Wainhouse went 7-0 with a 3.90 ERA. McGraw finished 7-1 with a team-best 2.11 ERA. Senior Brian Sajonia (9-3) had an ERA of 3.92 over 16 starts and 103 innings. All three were MLB draft selections.

Wainhouse was a first-rounder in 1988. McGraw went in the sixth round in 1990 and made his MLB debut with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1997. Sajonia was taken in the 20th round in 1988.

“That pitching staff was crazy. We had a lot of good stuff,” said Wainhouse, who played seven seasons in the MLB. “And behind the plate, we were phenomenal. Randy was the first catcher taken in the draft that year (second round, 54th overall).”

Twelve players from the 1988 WSU team were selected in MLB drafts.

Of course, Olerud had the most notable pro career. A third-round pick after his junior season, Olerud played in the majors from 1989-2005. He helped the Toronto Blue Jays to back-to-back World Series titles in 1992-93. Olerud hit a career .295, made the All-Star team twice, earned three Gold Glove awards and won the AL batting title in 1993.

“What he did as a pro validated what he did as a college player,” Snyder said.

“There were a lot of great contributors on that team, a lot of guys drafted at high levels. Everybody played a part, and John was the rocket ship.

“It was just a dynamic team, putting on a show. We had a lot of lopsided wins. It felt like we were building a bit of a juggernaut.”

‘Expectation of excellence’

The Cougars had a comparably successful season in 1987, finishing 44-19 and advancing to the semifinal round of the NCAA West I Regional tournament.

WSU came into the 1988 season with a new look after losing a chunk of its roster to graduation, but the Cougars were determined to make another run in the national tourney.

“We knew we got close to going to the College World Series in 1987,” Snyder said. “There was disappointment with losing (in the regional round) and there were a lot of guys ready to go in ’88.

The Cougars had a talented class of sophomores, six of whom were starters in ’88.

“We lost all those seniors. We were young, but we thought we were going to do really well,” Connor said. “And no one anticipated the year John would have, except for everyone in the clubhouse.”

The Cougars’ younger players gained valuable experience while playing a difficult schedule in 1987 – Brayton often scheduled highly ranked nonconference opponents. They took another significant step during the following offseason, when the team competed in the competitive Alaska League.

“We competed really well in the Alaska League and our confidence built with experience,” Snyder said. “That was the foundation for 1988. … We felt like we were building for what we intended to be a College World Series run. We felt like we had the team and we knew how close we were the year before.”

“After the 1987 season, there was just an expectation of excellence,” Nichols said. “As freshmen, we worked our way into it. As sophomores, it was our time.”

The team jelled under the guidance of Brayton, then in his 27th year as coach and seeking a ninth NCAA Tournament berth.

Brayton had instituted a winning tradition at WSU – “a culture of expectations,” McGraw said – and the Cougars’ 1988 players embraced it.

“It was preparation to the nth degree,” Nichols said.

“Practices were intense,” Connor said. “Scrimmages were tough. You couldn’t hide. We all pushed each other and that was the great thing about that team. Bobo would accept nothing less.”

The Cougars shot out to a 9-0 record. In nonconference play, WSU defeated ranked opponents Clemson, Texas A&M and Cal State Fullerton.

“We knew we fit in with those types of teams and believed we had a chance to get to Omaha,” Snyder said.

WSU outscored its conference foes 174-84 and finished 18-4 . The Cougars never lost more than two games in a row.

“I felt like we were meeting expectations,” Wainhouse said. “Bobo expected that. He didn’t prepare us for anything less than that.”

The Cougars swept through the Pac-10 North tournament, outscoring four opponents 33-15. WSU, ranked in the nation’s top 10, drew a No. 2 seed for the NCAA West I Regional tournament.

“We thought we should have hosted a regional,” Nichols said. “For whatever reason, they put us (in Fresno) with the No. 1-ranked team in the country (Fresno State).”

The Cougars “ran out of gas a little bit,” Snyder said, and went 2-2 at the regional tournament. They beat Santa Clara 8-5 in the opening round, then lost to No. 15 USC 10-9. WSU bounced back with a 6-5 victory over Santa Clara before ending its season with a 7-6 loss to Fresno State in the semifinals. The Cougars came in at No. 14 in the final Baseball America poll.

“That regional was loaded, but we felt we were probably the best team there,” Connor said. “We thought we could win six or seven out of 10 against Fresno State.

“If you don’t get to Omaha, it’s easy to say that the whole thing feels like a failure. But the reality is that it wasn’t – it was a really special season.”

‘A local contingent’

Of the 39 players listed on WSU’s 1988 roster, 35 were in-state recruits.

“It said Washington State on our jerseys and we were all from Washington,” said Blanksma, a native of Rochester and now a chiropractor in Wenatchee. “That was really special.”

The history of success at WSU – under coaches Buck Bailey and Brayton – was a major draw for Washington-born prospects.

“If you were a good player in the state back then, you were expected to go to WSU,” said Wainhouse, a Mercer Island product who runs a youth baseball program in the Seattle area.

“A lot of guys had other options, but you didn’t consider not playing for WSU, especially at that time when they were building such good rosters, winning conference championships and playing deep into regionals,” added Snyder, who hails from Yakima and lives in Sammamish.

Members of the team relished the opportunity to represent their home state when they traveled to the South for stacked nonconference tourneys, or when they squared off against the best teams in California.

“For us, it was Wenatchee, Spokane, Kirkland, Bellevue,” said Connor, a Renton native who works for a dental supply company in Bremerton. “We took a lot of pride in that. We all played against each other (in high school). We were a bunch of Washington kids who were more than happy to fly to Austin and take on the No. 3 team in the country.”

The team enjoyed great chemistry and camaraderie, and a considerable part of that stems from familiarity and a shared background growing up in Washington.

These days, members of the 1988 team still keep in touch. They are all included on a messenger chat and occasionally meet up for golf trips.

“We got together a few weeks ago, seven or eight of us, and talked about how lucky we were to be a part of something like that,” Blanksma said. “When teams have that much success, they tend to stay in contact down the road. And it’s easy, because there’s a lot of quality people.”