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This historic, record-setting Notre Dame baseball player lives right here in Springfield

ryan mahan, state journal-register
·5 min read

Jim Morris will be watching his alma mater in the College World Series. He might also hear his name.

Morris, 86, played for Notre Dame the first time the Fighting Irish made the College World Series in 1957. The Springfield resident waited a long time before Notre Dame made it back to Omaha, Nebraska, in 2002.

The Irish’s third trip to the CWS took another 20 years. Notre Dame (40-15) will face Texas (47-20) at 6 p.m. Friday on ESPN.

Notre Dame's TJ Williams holds up the No. 1 as the team celebrates their win over Tennessee and a berth in the NCAA baseball College World Series. This is ND's third trip to the CWS and first since 2002. The 1957 team included Jim Morris, a former teacher who now resides in Springfield.
Notre Dame's TJ Williams holds up the No. 1 as the team celebrates their win over Tennessee and a berth in the NCAA baseball College World Series. This is ND's third trip to the CWS and first since 2002. The 1957 team included Jim Morris, a former teacher who now resides in Springfield.

College World Series: 11 players from Illinois part of NCAA baseball championships

Viewers might hear Morris’ name and one record that still stands after 65 years. He batted .714 in four games for Notre Dame in the 1957 College World Series as the Irish finished fourth overall.

“I was never afraid of any pitcher," Morris said on Wednesday while decked out in a Notre Dame T-shirt and hat. "That never entered my mind."

Quincy to Springfield

Morris grew up in Quincy and attended Quincy Notre Dame High School, where he was an all-American in both basketball and football and was an all-state pick in baseball. He went to the University of Notre Dame on a football scholarship in 1954 and planned to also play baseball after one year. While he fielded offers from other schools, Morris says his decision was simple: “It’s Notre Dame.”

Things didn’t go to plan, though, and he suffered a football-ending knee injury. He could still play baseball, and he became a one-sport athlete.

While at Notre Dame, he met Susan Eck. So when his baseball career was over, he moved to Springfield and they had six children.

Morris taught biology at Griffin High School and served as an assistant for whatever was needed, he said. He retired after 30 years as a data processor in 1997 from the Illinois Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities.

Jim Morris
Jim Morris

Making the College World Series

Morris' first baseball season since high school was 1957. He was coming off the knee injury, so he didn’t expect much, right? Wrong.

“I was a good hitter,” Morris said. “Some people can’t adjust, but I did.”

Morris led the team in batting average (.386, 27-for-70) in 20 games. In the NCAA tournament, Notre Dame beat Alma 18-2 then defeated Western Michigan 4-2 before a 9-2 loss to Northwestern on May 30. The next day, Notre Dame qualified for the CWS with a 6-1 win over Northwestern.

“We never thought about (the College World Series),” Morris said. “We had one pitcher (Chuck Symeon) the coach (Jack Kline) liked, and if we didn’t have our pitcher, we weren’t very good.”

On June 8, Notre Dame lost its first game of the CWS, 13-8 against Iowa State in 10 innings. The next day, Notre Dame hammered Colorado State 23-2 then blanked Texas 9-0 before a 5-4 loss to Penn State to end the Irish’s run.

Morris, who batted .667 (12-for-18) in six postseason games, said he was stranded at third base as the potential tying run when Notre Dame made the final out.

Records from Notre Dame in 1957 show Morris had two doubles and two home runs in the four CWS games. While his 10-for-14 line in the CWS doesn’t quite meet the NCAA’s threshold for 15 minimum at-bats, the NCAA still considers him the record holder because even an out in a hypothetical 15th at-bat would drop his average for the tournament to .667. That would still be the record over John Gall, who hit .611 (11-for-18) for Stanford in 1999.

“The best pitchers were at the College World Series and I just happened to hit them,” Morris said. “I was in a groove.”

Originally, Morris was a third baseman for the Irish. He briefly lost his spot in the lineup after he committed four errors in a single game.

“It was a really windy day and one of my errors dropped in the right-handed batters’ box and the catcher called for me to come in and get it,” Morris said. “It was so windy that I got a glove on it and they called it an error.”

Kline approached Morris to see if he was able to play the outfield.

“(Kline) needed a hitter, and he knew I could (hit),” Morris said. “He asked me if I could play outfield and I said, ‘Sure.’ I had never played outfield before.”

Meeting 'Yaz'

In 1958, a freshman joined the Notre Dame baseball team. While freshman weren’t allowed to play on varsity teams in college, Morris said he could tell the freshman with the name of Carl Yastrzemski was going to be a good ballplayer. Long before “Yaz” played 23 seasons in front of the Green Monster at Fenway Park for the Red Sox in a hall of fame career, Yastrzemski put on the Notre Dame navy and gold.

“(Yastrzemski) was a nice guy,” Morris remembered. “He was a shortstop then. He was one of the few guys that had a scholarship to Notre Dame in baseball. They knew how well he was going to be and he was. We were all impressed by him.”

The next year, Yastrzemski joined the Red Sox organization while Morris played 59 games for the Auburn Yankees in the New York-Penn League. Morris batted .244 as a professional (53-for-217) with 45 RBIs, eight doubles and 10 home runs.

Contact Ryan Mahan: 788-1546, ryan.mahan@sj-r.com, Twitter.com/RyanMahanSJR.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Springfield's Jim Morris part of Notre Dame baseball history at CWS