More on the 1970 Noles CWS title game shot with Bob from Nolefan.org

This team was something special. In an era with wooden bats, four of the regulars hit over .300 and another was at .292.

But the real pride of this team was the pitching staff; they had a team ERA of 1.49 and nine of 11 on the staff were under 3.00. All of the pitchers were good, but three of them were outstanding. Mac Scarce was the closer. For the season, he appeared in 16 games and saved 12 of them; he had an ERA of 1.62 and struck out 49 batters in 33.1 innings.

The team had two aces: Pat Osburn started 17 games, had a 12-2 record, six complete games, three shutouts and an ERA of 0.92. He struck out 154 batters in 126.2 innings. The other ace was Gene Ammann. He also started 17 games and his record was 15-0, had 10 complete games, eight shutouts and an ERA of 0.66 with 150 strikeouts in 137.1 innings.

The first game FSU played at this CWS was against Arizona. Ammann pitched and threw a complete game shutout. The second game was against Dartmouth; Osburn threw a complete game shutout of his own. The next game we lost to Texas. Our fourth game Tom Henson started and Mac Scarce closed and we shut out Ohio – Scarce threw two innings and picked up the save. Ammann came back and threw another complete game and this time we beat Texas; he gave up two runs.

That got us to the championship game, where two unusual things happened:



1. Osburn was knocked out of the game because of a freak accident. In the top of the fifth with two outs and one on Osburn hit a chopper back to the mound. The Southern Cal pitcher fielded it and threw it into right field. We scored a run but Osburn was lost when he stepped awkwardly running out the play and his right knee buckled. Osburn was shutting out USC up to this point.



2. Mac Scarce entered the game with two outs in the seventh with the score tied. He normally pitched an inning or two at the most. He struck out the first batter he faced to end the seventh and then retired the next 12 batters in a row, but because he wasn't used to pitching that many innings he developed the blister. He pitched 7 1/3 innings, struck out nine and only gave up one hit but he still took the loss.



By the way, Ammann didn’t make All-American that year. What a joke. Ammerman actually appeared in 18 games and started 17, based on the box scores. He won 15 games and did not lose. I’m including an article about it (after the jump) by FSU's SID in 1970.