Cal Bailey wins 900th baseball game

There wasn’t much fanfare at Cal Bailey Field after the game on Sunday afternoon.

There was just a simple announcement over the public address system.

By defeating Bluefield State 12-3 in the second game of a doubleheader, the West Virginia State University baseball team had just given coach Cal Bailey his 900th career victory. 

Cal Bailey / courtesy WVSU

Just a simple announcement. That’s the way the coach prefers to keep things.

“Cal’s just not fired up about personal stuff,” said State athletic director and assistant coach Sean Loyd. “He doesn’t like things like that. He doesn’t want anything to take away from the team and the player’s accomplishments. He’d rather focus on the players. There was no celebration planned and we knew that’s the way he would want it.”

“I don’t go much for all that,” Bailey admitted. “Maybe the 215th was just as important as this one was. I don’t know. I don’t remember 215.”

The accomplishment certainly merited much more celebration, as only 12 other Division II baseball coaches have reached the 900 win plateau.

“It’s really just a number,” Bailey continued. “But it also signifies how much work everyone has put into it to get this far.”

Bailey has an overall record of 900-417-4. He is an eight-time WVIAC Coach of the Year and his Yellow Jackets have won 13 WVIAC championships in his career, including seven of the past ten. Bailey is also fourth among active D-II coaches in career victories.

Bailey, a Spencer native, went into the U.S. Navy immediately following high school. Upon the completion of his service time, he went to West Virginia State College where he played two sports.

“My brother Jim was a football player at State and he talked me into coming down,” Bailey recalled. “I actually had a football scholarship. The understanding was if I made the football team that I could also try out for the baseball team. So I played both football and baseball until I was drafted into pro baseball.”

In 1966, Bailey signed a baseball contract with the Pittsburgh Pirates organization.

Bailey’s last stop in the minor leagues was a Class AAA stint with the Charleston Charlies in 1971.

It was in the minor leagues that Bailey, a pitcher, discovered his gift of evaluating baseball talent.

“I had always had the knack to be able to see what a player looked like in the evolution of their wind up and non-verbal communication – what they were saying with their body,” Bailey explained. “Several players would always ask me to watch them hit or to watch them throw. They wanted me to tell them what they were doing differently. I wasn’t a technical person, but I could tell you what you looked like when you were doing well and what you looked like when you were struggling.”   

“I remember specifically one night in Elmira, the roving pitching coach was in town. One night we were in the bullpen. The pitching coach yanked me aside and gave me a stern warning for me to quit messing with his pitchers.

“When he turned and left, collectively the guys in the bullpen told me that what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.”

Bailey came back to West Virginia State during the off season and earned his degree in 1972 and a Master’s Degree in 1974. He took over as head coach for State in 1978 where he has built one of the finest programs in the nation.

“It’s been a perfect match – West Virginia State and Cal Bailey,” said Bailey. “[State] always knew that I was primarily concerned with the players and cared about them as students. I made a rule the first day on the job that if you didn’t have at least a 2.0 [grade point average] you didn’t play. The NAIA rule was a lot less than that. We’ve graduated over 80 percent of our players that received [athletic] aid. We’ve had a lot of support from the administration and faculty.

“The biggest reward for me in it is that all of the wins came at West Virginia State. It’s the only place I’ve ever coached. There have been a lot of guys that made big sacrifices to play or be assistant coaches here. That’s the biggest accomplishment – all of the players we’ve had and all of the fans we’ve had.”

“I had chances to coach in the minor leagues,” Bailey said. “But I had a wife and a young son at home. I didn’t want a job for six months and have to look for another job for six months.”

Bailey’s simple approach has worked and kept him gainfully employed at State for 32 years.

“Really the philosophy is simple: if you can hit, you play,” Bailey said. “If you can get people out, you pitch. If you can do both, you do both.

“I just filled out the lineup card.”

One could expect Bailey, 66, to elevate the number of victories even higher? Is 1,000 wins possible?

“I might have [1,000] in me but the Lord may not allow me to get them out of me,” Bailey said with a laugh. “But as long as I stay healthy I plan on coaching. One day I’ll probably just come in and say ‘I’ve had enough’ and that will be it. But I don’t see that happening in the next five or six years.”