Auburn baseball's 1997 CWS memories: Tim Hudson's bad haircut and his greatest college game

AUBURN — Nobody could catch up with Matt Anderson's fastball. The No. 1 overall pick in the 1997 MLB Draft was Rice's last-ditch effort in the College World Series. Auburn already led 7-0 in the elimination game, but Anderson entered throwing near 100 mph, which that was rare for the time.

"This streak of white coming out of his hand," Auburn slugger Josh Etheredge remembers.

Teammate Rob Macrory struck out and returned to the dugout to sulk. Tim Hudson was next, and Anderson threw a breaking ball.

"So I just sat on fastball the next pitch," Hudson recalls. "I’d been getting beat by fastballs the whole tournament. He hit my bat."

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Hudson smashed a three-run home run over the left field scoreboard, finishing his six-RBI day.

"Had to be 450 feet," Macrory said.

"About 455 feet deep," according to Etheredge. "I was blown away."

An irritated Macrory stayed seated in the dugout as Hudson celebrated. Finally, he sat next to Macrory, removed his batting gloves and sat in silence, smirking.

Finally he patted Macrory's leg. "Mac, that's how you do it right there!"

That day in Omaha, Nebraska, was Hudson's greatest game as a two-way college star.

He led Auburn to the 1997 College World Series with a 15-2 record, 2.97 ERA and 165 strikeouts ... plus 18 homers, 95 RBIs and a .396 average.

Twenty-five years later, he's back in Omaha as Auburn's pitching coach.

"It’s really gratifying as a coach to see your players that you’ve worked with, see them have success," Hudson said. "It’s different as a player than as a coach. As a player, it was really exciting. You’re in the moment. As a coach, you take it all in. Take the big picture in."

Auburn hired Hudson in January 2020 after his 17-year MLB career that included stops in Oakland (2.98 ERA during the "Moneyball" 2002 season), Atlanta and San Francisco, where he won a World Series in 2014.

One of his favorite career experiences remains the 1997 run.

Auburn was eliminated in the next game by Stanford, but Hudson's homer was the defining memory of the experience on the field.

"We were used to seeing Tim Hudson doing Tim Hudson things, but it was a fastball about 99, up and away," Macrory said. "Tim pulled it literally over the scoreboard."

Off the field, it started with a haircut-gone-awry from fellow pitcher Patrick Dunham. He was the team's occasional barber, having learned the trade from his mom. Before Auburn left for Omaha, his hand slipped and caused him to cut off an extra chunk of hair at the bottom of Hudson's hairline.

Everyone broke out laughing.

"To blend it in I had it much shorter than anticipated," Dunham said, "not knowing that one day he would be completely bald. So I gave him a little precursor."

It didn't affect Hudson's performance. In the Rice game, he also pitched into the seventh inning, allowing one run on four hits.

During Hudson's junior year, coach Hal Baird had taught him a new pitch. They experimented with a lower arm angle. Hudson was a short guy who threw mostly sinkers.

When he added the split finger fastball to his arsenal, everything changed.

"It was natural for me to throw pitches that moved arm-side," Hudson said. "It was one of those things where the first time I threw it was probably as good of a split-finger as I threw when I was in the big leagues. It clicked just like that. On the flip side of it, throwing sliders and breaking balls was challenging for me. I naturally threw the inside of the ball. To make the ball go the other way, that was the more challenging pitch."

Teammates feared him. Baird always told the Tigers they might as well play intra-squad games in the bullpen, since nobody could put the split finger in play. During a preseason practice, Baird called Macrory over in the dugout while strikeouts ensued in the background.

"Is Tim that good, or are we just that bad?" Macrory remembers Baird asking.

Tim was just that good.

"I didn't want to (hit against him)," said Etheredge, the team's best hitter.

Hudson's split finger spring-boarded him as an MLB prospect. Years later, he sees it as the first of several evolutions in his arsenal that led him to coaching.

"If you’re fortunate enough to play for a while as a pitcher, you’re going to have to reinvent yourself a little bit along the way," he said. As his arm strength and range of motion changed, he became more of a finesse pitcher.

"I can relate to a few different styles of pitching. That and honestly just experience with teammates," he said. "Seeing four-seam, overhand curveball guys, even though that’s not the kind of pitcher I am. I see those styles throughout my career and just being in a bullpen with people, you hear stuff. Over time, you’re going to learn stuff that doesn’t really apply to you. That’s helped me as a coach."

Hudson deflects credit Auburn's newest generation of aces, such as Joseph Gonzalez. He likes to think his biggest contribution is the mental side. For instance, preparing for the emotions of Omaha.

After Stanford eliminated Auburn in 1997, assistant coach Steve Renfroe approached Hudson on the field, hugged him and said thanks.

"Tim kind of let everything go that had been placed on his shoulders that season, and cried," Macrory said. "We all just wept together, because it was the end of the journey."

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Auburn baseball: Tim Hudson back at CWS as pitching coach