ORAL HISTORY PROJECT
BASEBALL IN PENNSYLVANIA

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4. Date of Interview

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DO NOT WRITE BELOUJ THIS LINE

Dr.

Dixon

oral History
September

22,

L993

Suggestions for doing Oral History
Steps to take before the Interview

(1) Farniliarize yourself with the background of .your. subject,
naving some knowlLdge of the area and tirne period in which he or
she lived.
(2) Study all available records such as diaries, photograPhs, and
heirlooms.

(3) !{hen doing fanily histories,

interview all available fanily

Eemhers.

(4) Prepare your questions beforehand, naking sure that they will
establish the basic inf omation you wish to gain from the

interview.
During the Interview
(1) Tape-record your interview for future reference. Do not rely
solely on written notes. Videotaping your interview is helpful
because facial expressions will aid you in gaining a sense of the
person's feelings.
(2\ Ask very broad questions. When you get to an ansrrer that seems
to lead in the dj.rectj.on of inportant material, ignore your
prepared questions temporarily and probe further.

(3) Never interrupt an answer, even when the response seens
uninportant.
After the Interview
(1) Try to get interviews from more than one person on your topic.
More than one interview will help you to gauge the different
opinions people ho1d, and help you to dete:mine the veracity of the
information that you obtain.
(2) Collect from your tapes the information which, on the one hand,
best reflects your informants' testimony about their lives and, on
the other, enables you to say something of importance about those
lives and the times in which they lived.
rnformation taken from A student,s Guide to History, by Jules

Benjanin

R.

Baseball- fn Pennsylvania

Interview wi-th

Jeff Messer

a

Head Basebal-l- Coach

Slippery Rock Universit.y
For

Dr. David Dixon

History Department
By

Peter J Bergen
November

22, L994

Q1)

A1)
Q2)

A2)

Q3)

A3)
Q4)

A4)

Q5)

As)

Q6)

A5)

Q7)

A7)

Jeff do you have any brothers or sisters?
Yes, I have two sisters.
Did they play softbal-l-?
They were more of the equestrian type. they were more into
horse riding, and stuff like that.
When did you first become interested in basebal-l-?
Young, maybe four or five years ol-d.
Was your dad int.o basebal-l , ot did he play itz
He was j-nto all sports, he played professional basket.bal1,
that was his favorite sport.
When you first started to p1ay, at the age of four you
started in the pee-wee league, and did you contj-nue
straight up? Or did you take time off?
From five years up, I played competitively through all
levels and the last year I guess I played in was 1983.
What college did you go to? And did you play there?
I went to Springfield col1ege, in Massachuets and I played
there for four years, and then I played for one year over
in HoLland.
How was it over there? How do they look, and view baseball?
They have a nice competitive league over there. I mean it.s
not as professional as it is over here, but there are some
players that play over there that could play here in this
professional league.

z

Q8)

A8)

Do they get. paid the same rate over there?

No, not by any stretch of the imagination do they get the
same salary, f mean they get. paid better then our minor
league players but not nearly the same amount.

Qe)

Do

the fans apprecj-ate the sport as much over there,

ds

here.
Ae)

Q1o

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A11

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No, Europe is soccer orientated f mean it's

coming along

its not just Holland and lta1y, but other countries are
getting into fu11 force.
Who influenced you to stay with baseball? I mean with you
dad playing basketbal-I, he didn't influence you to play
basketball at all?
He infl-uenced me to play basketball, but all three sports
as weII. I went to college to play all three sports, but
when I got there I decided to stick with baseba1l. Now with
coaching defiantly my father. I was fortunate enough to
have a outstanding, outstanding array of high school
coaches. I feel- that it was the high school coaches more,
high school coaches I looked at and listened to, not t.hat
I didn't list.en to my college coach but was the high school
coaches.

Qa2)

what position did you play throughout. your basebarr- career?

A12

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Q13

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shortstop. r played a little pitcher but mainly shortstop.
Now how long have you been coaching here? And have you
coached anywhere else?

A13

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Q1s

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This j-s my tenth year, and f coached Westfield State
Col1ege, and I coached one year out at Oklahoma State.
Now what motivates you to coach and to continue coaching?
f think the change in the nucleus. You've got a change in
different players, different personalities and different
abilities. Every coach thinks of that dream season, not
that it wi}l ever happen. Being undefeated and pushing to
get to t.he worl-d series. We went to the world series in
1989, and it makes you more hungry to get back to where
you were. That and seeing the younger players coming in and
maturing or not maturing. I just enjoy working with the
college age baseball players.
Now you didn't coach high school baseball at al-I did you?
I coached summer league or summer legion bal-l-. Which is
f or high school age kids. I coached in t.wo places, one in
Massachuets, where the level of play was very 1ow and two,
in Oklahoma where the level of play was, where every player
on my legion team went. onto college on a fuII athlet.ic
scholarship. I had experience at the high school level in
bot.h coaching and teaching. I taught at high school for two
years as well-.
think motivates ball players to keep playing
and striving to go forward.

What do you

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Q1B

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I think that at this level every players has aspirations
and goals to being playing somewhere like Three Rivers or
some stadium and f feel- t.hat this motivates their hunger or
signing a pro contract or possible winning A championship
pushes them. But we try to open that door or possibility to
them, but they have to realj-ze that is their second
priority here.
What Image do you think that baseball has played on our
society, Past and recenL?
I think t.hat society l-ooks up to basebal-l- and if one its on
sport it's baseball that people have looked up to. I mean
its been around forever and people thrive on that, and I
don't think that. with the strike going on right now its
not going to tarnish the history or the reputation of
baseba11. If anything its going to make it stronger for the
future and that down the line the players are going to be
more leve1 headed. Its' going to make baseball stronger,
and you can see that with the increase in at.t.endance in all
Ievel-s of the sport, in professional, triple, doub1e and
even single A.
fn coaching any sport there are the positive and the
negat.ives, what do you think are t.he posit.ive to coaching
baseball?

A18

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The positive are seeing the player mature physically and

menta11y, I mean some do mature and some don'L. Also at

t.his l-evel, at the college l-eveI its also rewarding to see
them graduate. I mean in the ten years that I have been
here our graduation rate is somewhere around 90*. I have
only had five players that didn't graduate and I know ever
one of them. Its nice to that some players that defiant.ly
wouldn't have graduated if it had not been for baseba11.
They would not have set the discipline or academic
discipline so well if they had not known that they had
baseball holding over them were t.hey knew that thy had to
do so well to be academically to be eligible for the sport.
The most rewarding thing is to see them grow up and come
together and work together as a team, but at the same time
to be able to go out and make a living for themselves.
that's basically my mission not to see them go to the pros
but. for them to graduate and to make a living for
themselves, where's their going to have a good experience,
and to make sure that the l-ast time that they step foot
onto the Slippery Rock baseball field that they have a
positive experience. t.hat their going to enjoy and t.o have
them enjoy their four years at Slippery Rock that's why we
do other things besides the games here. I mean we go t.o
Florida every year on a spring trip and we just came back
from Europe this past summer were we took twenty-four
players and we even took players that had already

try t.o have a good experience.
Without questi-on what would be the biggest drawback to
baseball and this sport?
The biggest drawback at this level, coJ-Iege level?
Co11ege, Pro if you have a outlook on the pros but mainly
college? Seeing that's what you've coached.
rrThe biggest drawback on the game itsel-f?" Oh boy, Uh I
think that college baseball has come along so quickly that
many times as with other sports players are putting their
heart and soul into baseball along with academics that
they usually do not get any kind of special treatmenL when
it comes to academic scheduling when it comes to , I'm not
looking for them to get paid or anything, but their going
out on a limb and their representing the university and
public relations wise and they have to represent the
universit.y when their traveling and I'm using Slippery
Rock on a small scale, but you look at the larger schools
that. are bringing in millions of dollars and the schools
don't give them extra help academically or they don't give
them extra help in tutors or whatever and you don't want
to separate the general student body from the athletic
body of students, yet at the same time these people are
helping the universit.y out in the hope that they would be
helped by the unj-versity in reLurn.
graduated.

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