Members of the 1962 University of Florida baseball team, including All-SEC third baseman Tom Moore (center), tour Condron Ballpark on Sunday. (Photo: Craig Haas/UAA Communications)
The '62 Gators Made History, Stick Together 60 Years Later
Monday, April 25, 2022 | Baseball, Scott Carter
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By: Scott Carter, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — They assembled on the party deck down the first-base line Sunday afternoon at Condron Ballpark. On the field below, Florida and Tennessee played the final game of their three-game series.
Once upon a time, they were the young men underneath the warm sun in Gators uniforms. Sixty years later, they are old men trudging toward home, thankful for their blessings and the memories of their youth.
"What a field,'' said Tom Moore, a speedy third baseman and first-team All-American for the 1962 Gators. "Wouldn't I have loved to play on this field."
If so, perhaps Moore would not have needed Earl Montgomery, a Tallahassee dentist and his late teammate, to make Moore a bridge for his upper-front teeth. A ground ball at Perry Field bounced off a stray rock and damaged Moore's choppers back in the day.
The eight men who attended Sunday's 60-year reunion, all in their late 70s or early 80s, shared plenty of stories similar to Moore's. They held their first reunion since their inaugural one 10 years ago on the 50th anniversary.
The 1962 Florida baseball team owns a unique distinction in Gators lore. It's the first UF team in any sport to ascend all the way to No. 1 in the country. The Gators overtook Arizona in the final poll of the regular season heading into the NCAA regional playoffs. A headline in the Tampa Times when the 1962 UF baseball team reached No. 1.
"It was kind of a magical year,'' said Ron Birchall, who played shortstop and later signed a professional contract with the New York Mets. "The year was phenomenal. We will always remember it. We cherish these reunions and, of course, comparing this facility to what we played on, there are no words. I'm just really proud of Florida and the whole athletic culture."
Coming off a season in which they missed the postseason, the '62 Gators started the season slow, losing three of their first seven games. They took off and began their climb to the top of the national poll. Florida won 11 consecutive games to take control of the SEC East, heading into a two-game series at Auburn.
The trip to Auburn is one the surviving Gators still talk about as if yesterday. Florida's winning formula that season centered on solid pitching and an abundance of speed. The Gators led the nation in stolen bases, with Moore setting a UF single-game record of six against Georgia that still stands today.
However, the Gators failed to steal a base in losing back-to-back games to Auburn. They contend the Tigers and head coach Erk Russell, who later gained fame as Vince Dooley's defensive coordinator at Georgia, used an old trick to slow down the Gators' running game: they packed the basepaths with sand.
Gators catcher Len Scheinhoft still recalls what he did after the first game.
"Dragging the sand off the infield the night before the Auburn game,'' he said.
The Gators returned to full speed afterward to win their next seven games, including a victory over Mississippi State in the first game of the best-of-three SEC Championship Series. After losing the second game, Florida took the third game, 8-7, to claim the SEC title.
The 5-foot-8, 155-pound Moore was one of the team's standouts. He led the SEC with 26 stolen bases, batted .319, scored 34 runs, and drove in 25 runs in the regular season. Scheinhoft added 27 RBI and caught a capable pitching staff anchored by captain C.W. Price, Jerry Nicholson, Jim Biggart, Jim Elliott and Eddie Clarke.
The Gators may have lacked power, but centerfielder Al Lopez Jr. added 21 stolen bases and a dose of star power. Lopez Sr. managed the Chicago White Sox during the '62 season and led the Cleveland Indians (1954) and White Sox (1959) to the World Series when Lopez Jr. grew up. Lopez's father, Al Lopez, was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1977.
Gators head coach Dave Fuller was in his 15th season as the UF baseball coach and served as head coach of the Gators first-year football team. Fuller was no stranger to success, but the 1962 Gators won 25 games to surpass the single-season school record of 21 set a decade earlier.
Fuller offered his assessment of what made the Gators special to an Orlando Sentinel reporter late in the season.
"We've got two things going for us — pitching depth and speed,'' Fuller said. "I think that if you had to pick out any one difference between this and our other championship teams, you'd have to say it was overall team speed.
"You've got to figure that any club good enough to win would have to get the pitching. But this has been a particularly fast team."
The Gators entered the NCAA District 3 Regional in Gastonia, N.C., as the nation's No. 1-ranked team and a favorite to advance to Omaha. They opened the tournament with a 1-0 victory over Florida State behind a four-hit shutout by Price. The team's fortunes — and the weather — began to turn.
Rain dampened the rest of the double-elimination tournament, and in its second game, Florida lost 7-1 to Wake Forest, Fuller's alma mater. Later that day, the Gators returned to action and suffered a controversial 3-1 loss to Florida State in a five-inning game shortened due to weather.
The Gators threatened to rally and thought they had trimmed the lead to 3-2 on a sacrifice fly to left field by Jim Duncan, scoring Montgomery from third. But umpires ruled Montgomery had left third before the catch, nullifying the run.
Members of the 1962 UF baseball team at Sunday's 60-year reunion. (Photo: Craig Haas/UAA Communications)
Sixty years later, the '62 Gators have not forgotten.
"As long as the last of us lives, I suspect there will be a disgusted complaint about the unbelievable decision of district officials in North Carolina to eliminate us from that tourney and our chance to go to Omaha,'' Moore wrote to other team members in a guide distributed for the reunion. "Our team — all of us teammates — and the University of Florida deserved a fairer ending than that."
The disappointing end didn't linger. Most of the Gators went on to successful careers in business, politics, education and law.
Together, they made history.
"We had an outstanding team," Birchall said. "We had great chemistry."
"We all took being Gator baseball players seriously and wanted to do the best we could,'' added Moore. "We realized we had a pretty good team by the middle of the season. It was a wonderful experience."
Fuller and eight of the players have died. Of the 14 who remain, they keep the '62 Gators alive through the stories they share.
