Early records of baseball at Slippery Rock University are sketchy, but from all indications the sport had its baptism at The Rock in 1924. Scores from that first season of competition are unavailable, but it is known that Wesley Jonah was the coach of the squad and Joseph Ammon was the team captain.
The first record for a season on the books is for the year 1928, when The Rock compiled a 3-1 mark. In 1929, the team had a 7-2 record under Jonah.
Through the many years of baseball at The Rock, only four men have coached the team. After Jonah inaugurated the sport in the mid 1920s, baseball was played on an on-again, off-again basis until 1948 when the legendary N. Kerr Thompson assumed the head coaching responsibilities
Thompson’s early years were some of the most successful for Rock baseball, as the squad went undefeated in his first three seasons.
Thompson coached The Rock hardballers through the 1955 season, when he turned the reins over to Wally Rose. Rose remained The Rock’s head coach for 29 seasons and recorded 410 wins before turning the helm of the program over to current Rock head coach Jeff Messer in 1986.
Rose’s reign as The Rock boss included a pair of Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) championship seasons (1978 and 1982), as well as the school’s first NCAA Division II regional tournament appearance in 1982.
That success was a precursor of what was to follow when Messer became The Rock’s head coach.
In 23 seasons at the helm, Messer has tutored teams that have captured 15 PSAC-Western Division titles, two PSAC playoff championships, four regional championships, two regional runner-up honors and a pair of top-five national finishes.
Messer-coached teams have played in 10 regional tournaments and four NCAA Division II College World Series.
To say Rock Baseball has come a long way since the baseball program’s inception in the early 1920s would be an understatement of gross proportions.
Under Rose, Rock hardballers took their first southern trip in 1975. Those trips have since become tradition for Rock hardball teams.
Under Rose, the team wore hats and shoes provided by the players themselves; new uniforms ordered by the athletic department took nearly two years to be received. Today, the team is outfitted in handsome, double-knit home and away uniforms that reflect the program’s head-of-the-class status in the NCAA Division II baseball fraternity.
The playing conditions were also not the best in the late 1950s. The field was not fenced in and a scoreboard was absent. Rose’s final seasons, and Messer’s first 16 campaigns, were played on Wally A. Rose Park – formerly known as Hilltop Park – which was considered one of the finest diamonds in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Midway through the 2002 season, The Rock hardballers moved into their new home – Jack Critchfield Park, a $1.5 million, 1,500-seat, lighted facility second to none when it comes to on-campus collegiate baseball complexes. "The Jack," as it is affectionately known, may be the finest baseball facility in Pennsylvania and the northeast.
From a team that looked "quite grubby," as Wally Rose characterized the teams in his first years, The Rock baseball program has blossomed into one of the finest organizations, not only in the state and region, but the entire nation.
