Mike Martin Field at Dick Howser Stadium

Mike Martin Field at Dick Howser Stadium
Former names Seminole Stadium (1983–1988)
Dick Howser Stadium (1988–2005)
Location Chieftan Way, Tallahassee, Florida, United States
Coordinates 30°26′26″N 84°18′15″W / 30.440589°N 84.304064°W / 30.440589; -84.304064Coordinates: 30°26′26″N 84°18′15″W / 30.440589°N 84.304064°W / 30.440589; -84.304064
Owner Florida State University
Operator Florida State Athletics
Capacity 6,700
Field size Left Field - 340 ft
Center Field - 400 ft
Right Field - 320 ft
Right Field Fence - 315 ft
Surface Natural grass
Construction
Opened March 28, 1983
Construction cost $14 million (including renovation)[1]
Tenants
Florida State Seminoles baseball (NCAA)

Mike Martin Field at Dick Howser Stadium is a baseball venue located in Tallahassee, Florida, United States, located adjacent to Doak Campbell Stadium on the campus of Florida State University. It is the home field of the Florida State Seminoles baseball team of the NCAA Division I Atlantic Coast Conference. It opened in 1983 and was renovated in 2004. The two-year, $12 million renovation project expanded the seating capacity to 6,700.[2]

History

Grandstands

In 1988, the stadium portion of the venue was named after Florida State's first baseball All-American, Dick Howser, also a former head baseball coach of the program. The stadium was originally called Seminole Stadium. In 2005, the field itself was dedicated to current Florida State head coach Mike Martin.[2]

The stadium has played host to 33 NCAA Regional Tournaments since opening in 1983.[3] In 2014, Dick Howser Stadium was rated as one of the top 100 best stadium experiences across all sports in the United States and Canada.

Mike Martin

Mike Martin has been the head baseball coach for Florida State University for 37 years. Martin was inducted into the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2007. Also in 2005 Mike Martin was inducted into the Florida Sports Hall of Fame. He has a record of 1898-671 he is second all time in wins and first in NCAA Division I baseball. Martin has taken FSU to 37 consecutive NCAA Regional appearances and has made 15 College World Series Appearances. Mike Martin has never had less than a 40 win season as the head coach of Florida State. Also having 24 seasons with 50 wins or more. Mike Martin has been a part of 2,187 games at Florida State including playing and coaching out of the 3,850 total baseball games played in Florida State University baseball history. Mike Martin did not start out his coaching career at Florida State or was it even baseball. He started his coaching career at a junior high school as a basketball coach, then getting the job at Tallahassee Community College as the head basketball coach. A few years later Mike Martin was reunited with his alma mater Florida State as an assistant coach under Woody Woodward in 1975. In 1979 then head coach Dick Howser took the head coaching job with the New York Yankees leaving the Florida State Baseball job vacant. In 1980 Martin would be appointed the Head coaching job for Florida State University and has not looked back since.

In 2005 Florida State University dedicated the stadiums name after current baseball coach Mike Martin. Calling it "Mike Martin Field at Dick Howser Stadium."

Mike Martin is one of the most decorated coaches in any college sport, the only thing that Martin is missing is the most beloved trophy in all of college baseball and that is a National Baseball Championship. Martin has coached so many young men that have gone on to have very successful MLB careers. He has had 21 first round picks as the head coach at Florida State, but when Martin was asked what his favorite part of coaching was he said "I love building relationships with these young men, but I don't take pride in making them great baseball players and scholars, but turning them into great men." showing that he cares about his players.

Mike Loynd Tradition Room

Florida State's baseball program has had many outstanding players and has enjoyed much success throughout the decades. To commemorate their storied baseball program they have built a large tradition room to honor players, coaches, and the University program as a whole. The Mike Loynd Tradition Room is located next to the Griffin Family Clubhouse under the first base stands. The trophy room as stated above showcases the stories of the great players in Florida State baseball history telling of their stories and successes. The room holds awards, plaques, championships, and more. Inside of the tradition room is a lounge area with multiple televisions that continually broadcast historic moments that have occurred within the baseball program throughout the years. On the walls of the tradition room there are tributes to the Seminole teams that made twenty-one appearances to the College World Series, and appeared in seventeen conference championship games. In addition to team awards certain individuals were signaled out and awarded for their excellence. The individual awards are showcased in glass cases; they include the four Golden Spikes Awards (an award given to the best NCAA division one player in the country)won by, Mike Loynd, Mike Fuentes, J.D. Drew, and Buster Posey. Additionally other individual awards that are on display include the coveted Gold Glove Award, an award that honors the best defensive player in the country at their given position. Buster Posey most notably won both the Golden Spikes Award and the Golden Glove Award. He was the first Seminole baseball player to be presented with the award in only its second year of being given as an award.[4]

The Mike Loynd Tradition Room was built as a part of the nearly twelve million dollar two year renovation project that ended in 2004 giving rise to the Dick Howser Stadium we see today. The room was built in large part because of a generous donation by former Golden Spikes Award winner Mike Loynd.

Section B Animals

The Section B Animals of Florida State baseball [5] is a tradition for the Seminoles. Existing since 1977 the animals are a group of Florida State baseball fans that come to the games and cheer on the Seminoles. Some old fans believe that they evolved out of a fan group that existed even before that time and was organized around supporting an individual player, a first baseman. That group carried a paddle with the player's picture on it and waved it during games.The reason for their name Section B Animals is because when Dick Howser Stadium opened in 1983 they took accustom to section B. The name animals came when a man would bring bad doughnuts to the games and eventually the group of fans threw the doughnuts at the man who brought the doughnuts and they were called animals, so the name stuck.The Animals consist of students, alumni, business people, families, public servants, and anyone else who has a passion for Florida State Baseball.[6] The animals job is to use cheers and songs to pump up the crowd and intimidate the opposing team. They strategically serenade the opposition by choosing songs from their official 63-song “Animals of Section B” songbook. Section B does unusual things like displaying the Canadian flag and singing "O Canada" in the bottom of the fifth inning.[6] The Animals have been featured on ESPN, Sports Illustrated, The Sporting News Online, Seminole Uprising, The Mike Martin Show, WTXL 27, WCTV 6, Fox SportsSouth, The Tallahassee Democrat, The Florida Times Union, FSView, The Last Word, Gainesville Sun, Durham Herald Sun and Wakulla Digest. The Section B Animals have worked hard to establish a reputation of originality, positive energy,and of the #1 cheering section in college baseball.[7] In recent years, the Animals website, Section B Online has begun generating hundreds of thousands of hits per month and is the premier source of Florida State Baseball on the Internet.

Attendance

The stadium annually ranks among the top 10 nationally in attendance and set records in 2003 for total and average attendance.[2]

In 2013, the Seminoles ranked 8th among Division I baseball programs in attendance, averaging 4,594 per home game.[8]

In 2012, college baseball writer Eric Sorenson ranked the facility as the third best big game atmosphere in Division I baseball.[9]

Records

The single-game attendance record of 6,789 spectators was set on April 19, 2008, when Florida State defeated then-No. 1 Miami 9-5. During the week of April 14–20, 2008, 30,179 fans watched Florida State play a total of five games against intrastate competition, the (Florida Gators, North Florida Ospreys, and Miami Hurricanes). The series record is 19,062, set in that week's Miami series.

Top 10 single-game attendances

The following is a list of the ten highest single-game attendance figures in the venue's history, as of the 2016 season.[10]

No. Opponent Date Attendance
1. Miami April 19, 2008 6,789
2. Miami April 18, 2008 6,756
3. Florida April 15, 2008 6,737
4. Florida April 10, 2012 6,730
5. Florida April 9, 2013 6,719
6. Miami April 15, 2006 6,715
7. Miami April 14, 2006 6,700
8. Florida April 14, 2015 6,634
9. Miami March 1, 2014 6,593
10. Florida April 18, 2007 6,574

Pictures

See also

References

  1. ↑
  2. 1 2 3 "Dick Howser Stadium". Seminoles.com. Archived from the original on 2012-05-15. Retrieved 15 May 2012.
  3. ↑ "NCAA Tournament Results". CSTV. pp. 160–62. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-05-15. Retrieved 15 May 2012.
  4. ↑ "Dick Howser Stadium". FSU Athletics. FSU. Retrieved 15 November 2016.
  5. ↑ "About the Animals". Section B. Retrieved 15 November 2016.
  6. 1 2 "About the Animals". Section B.
  7. ↑ "About the Animals". Section B. Retrieved 15 November 2016.
  8. ↑ Cutler, Tami (June 11, 2013). "2013 Division I Baseball Attendance - Final Report". Sportswriters.net. NCBWA. Archived from the original (PDF) on July 20, 2013. Retrieved July 20, 2013.
  9. ↑ Sorenson, Eric (5 October 2012). "Distiller's Dozen - The "Hey, Nice Stadium" Edition". CollegeBaseballToday.com. Archived from the original on 14 December 2012. Retrieved 14 December 2012.
  10. ↑ "Mike Martin Field at Dick Howser Stadium". 2012 Florida State Baseball Almanac. p. 6. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-05-15. Retrieved 15 May 2012.
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