Column: Mike Martin is the Consummate Man of Baseball

It was after the April 4 home contest against Jacksonville that the realization occurred.

This was the contest commemorating the Negro Leagues, where the first African-American athlete at Florida State, Fred Flowers, threw out the first pitch; the teams wore special gear to mark the event. Florida State came out victorious 6-2 and Mike Martin showed up to his postgame press conference rocking the cap.

(Clint Eiland/The Daily Nole)

“I kept up with the [Negro] Leagues when I was a kid,” Martin said. “‘Cool Papa’ Bell…Roy Campanella…Buck O’Neil…Satchel Paige. I’ve got books that I remember vividly. I’m trying to think of the gentlemen that was so fast…they said he was so fast he could cut the light out and be asleep before the room got dark.”

For a large part of American history, baseball was the epitome of a nation’s identity. It was deeply ingrained to the national mindset and had recognition that few sports can ever match. If you were an American, you knew baseball. Even if you didn’t like the sport, you had an underlying knowledge that helped you decipher whatever the popular discussion was at the time.

It wasn’t without its faults of course. Just as we know the popularity of baseball, we know the trials and tribulations that minorities went through trying to earn their spot. American history cannot be told without genuine discussion of the racism and prejudice that infected its entire structure.

Mike Martin knows every single bit of it. When he started rattling off names and the legends associated with the Negro League players, it was obvious how they held a special place in his memory and his heart. He loves the sport in a way that 99 percent of people simply cannot.

“It was such a great time in my life to keep up with baseball,” Martin said. “In fact, think I’ll go home tonight and pull that book out and read it again and look at pictures. It’ll bring back a lot of memories.”

This isn’t the piece for treatises on race and sport, and that’s not the intention here. But any time one discusses baseball as Americana, it deserves notice. Martin is not unique in following the Negro Leagues, and he is not unique in having a life intertwined with the sport.

But he is clearly unique in where his career has led him. Mike Martin will go down in history as the winningest college baseball coach of all-time — maybe this weekend — with basically no one near him at this point…and it just feels perfect. You could ask every single coach in America who best represents college baseball and one would guess that Martin would receive a sizable majority of votes.

That’s because in the ideal universe, Martin is the prototypical baseball coach. His southern drawl with irregular crescendos paired with his ever-present humor and humility make every single person feel welcome. Players, fans, and media alike feel the same way when talking to him.

It doesn’t mean much, but I can honestly say that Martin is the one head coach on Florida State’s campus that does not feel somewhat intimidating to converse with. Even if he thinks your question is self-evident or not entirely relevant, he will give you an honest answer.

Martin gave an interview with Seminole Sports Magazine recently where he discussed how he wants to be viewed when his time as head baseball coach is over.

“I want people to say ’11’ did it the right way’,” he said in the interview. “I just want people to know that Florida State doesn’t owe me anything. I owe everything to Florida State…I want people to know that we tried to do it the right way.”

Martin represents everything good about the game while making amends with the negative aspects of its history. There is something so distinct with him that makes it hard to view him in any other capacity.

He’s the quintessential father and coach. That makes it all the more humorous that his first job in Tallahassee was…as the basketball coach at Tallahassee Community College.

Some of us can get pretty cynical when talking about sports. We have reason to be of course, and a dash of cynicism is good to keep things in perspective. Martin makes it incredibly difficult to bring that cynicism to the diamond.

It’s refreshing in the best way.