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Players of the University of Oklahoma baseball team lift up their coach, Larry Cochell, after winning the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska on June 11, 1994.
The last time Oklahoma brought a Men’s College World Series trophy back to Norman, Rick Gutierrez played second base for the Sooners.
A transfer infielder from Los Angeles Harbor College the year before, Gutierrez hit .352 with 10 home runs and 68 RBI in the spring of 1994, good enough to be named a first-team All-American and the Big 8 Player of the Year. At the Men’s College World Series that June, he carried a batting average of .563. The mark still stands eighth all-time in the event’s history.
Nearly 30 years later, teammates refer to Gutierrez as “the heartbeat” of OU’s second national champion baseball team. And sometime before the Sooners closed out Georgia Tech in the title game on June 11, 1994, Gutierrez felt an itch and pulled aside one of his teammates with a mission.
“I asked Mark Soto, the first baseman, ‘I said listen: whoever gets the last out, I want that ball.’” Gutierrez recalls.
Look back at the footage: the final out unfolds almost perfectly, as if by Gutierrez’s design.
Jason Varitek, the future first-round draft pick and 15-year major leaguer, grounds a nubber up the third base line. Catcher Javier Flores flips off his mask, chases it down and fires toward first base with the arm of a converted shortstop. Soto hauls it in with his left foot on the bag to seal the victory, raises both arms in the air and celebration ensues.
In a matter of seconds, Tim Walton is tripping over Kenny Gajewski and Kenny Gajewski is tripping over Tim Walton. Soto finds his way to the dogpile. Closer Bucky Buckles is buried at the bottom of it. Coach Larry Cochell shakes hands with future OU coach Sunny Golloway, then an assistant with the Sooners.
In the midst of the chaos, Gutierrez is nowhere to be found.
“I didn’t even dive into the pile at first,” he says. “As soon as they made the last out you can see Mark Soto throw me the ball. He gave me the ball. I had it in my glove and I was not going to lose that ball.”
It’d be 25 years before anyone else saw it again.
OU’s run at the 2022 MCWS — which continues against Ole Miss in Game 1 of the championship series at 6 p.m. Saturday — has former Sooners like Gutierrez recollecting on the spring of 1994 lately, reliving the moments of the program’s last title run some 28 years after the fact.
They remember earning a top seed and going on the road for the Central Regional anyway; talking trash to Texas on its home turf when they did. They’ve got stories of the people who doubted them, like the hotel in Omaha that turned the Sooners away in favor of a team they figured might last longer than a game or two.
They all still feel the moments that mattered.
“I can still remember all the at bats and the plays in the field,” says infielder Rich Hills, who today coaches baseball and lives in Tuttle.
Oklahoma shortstop Rich Hills can’t find the handle as Kansas’ Ron Oelschlager slides in safely at second base on May 20, 1994 in Norman.
"It was so surreal," Flores, a director of business development in Oklahoma City, says. "We make the third out and instead of me running to the mound and piling right away, I turn around and go pick up my mask like it was just another out. I think it was just instinct. Because suddenly it hit me. ‘Oh my gosh we just won the world series.’"
Buckles got to relive his MCWS moment on national TV during one of OU’s early games in Omaha. As the pitcher on the mound when the Sooners recorded the final out against Georgia Tech, his name was the answer to a trivia question on an ESPN broadcast.
Oklahoma relief pitcher Bucky Buckles celebrates the final out as the Sooners defeat Georgia Tech, 13-5 to win the College World Series championship, Saturday, June 11, 1994 in Omaha, Neb. Photo via The Oklahoman archives
While Buckles laughed with his family and misspelled the name of former teammate Ryan Minor on Twitter from a casino in California, the broadcast crew got a kick out of this.
A couple of days later, the same crew gave him a shoutout on his 49th birthday.
“People hear the name Bucky Buckles and they look at me funny,” Buckles jokes. “It’s kind of been my life.”
For Buckles, as with many of his former teammates, the memories replay in his mind more than just the rare occasion his name pops up on a game broadcast. This spring, while the Sooners charged to Omaha, they flooded back.
“I probably watch the final out at least a few times a year. It feels like yesterday” Buckles, a teacher in California, says. “I show some of my students. They don’t believe that I played baseball and this and that. So I’ll pull it up on YouTube and I’ll show them.”
Gutierrez only made it to OU by mistake.
After proving himself at LA Harbor, the junior college in the South Bay of Los Angeles, he had the attention of Division I scouts. In Norman, Cochell — who resigned from his position in 2005 after 15 seasons following racist comments prior to an ESPN telecast — heard about a gamer who could play anywhere across the infield.
When Gutierrez's coach at LA Harbor asked about the schools he was interested in, the versatile infielder's mind jumped to the team from Oklahoma he'd seen wearing orange and black in Omaha.
"Oklahoma State had been in the College World Series for a few straight years. I thought there was only one Oklahoma," Gutierrez says.
"When I got to OU we’re introducing everybody in the locker room and guys were talking about Oklahoma State being ranked so high and how we're not ranked. I was like ‘Hold on, so there’s two teams here?’”
Oklahoma second baseman Rick Gutierrez fields a grounder during practice June 1, 1994 in Norman.
Gutierrez stuck it out with the Sooners and after the 1994 national title, he was selected with the 773rd pick in the 1994 MLB Draft. He spent four seasons as a player in the Cleveland organization, then a few more coaching.
Eventually, Gutierrez settled into a life away from baseball in Orange County, Calif. and the ball he clutched in Omaha came with him, spending its days in a box of other memorabilia from his playing career.
No one else from OU knew he had it.
From his two years in Norman, Gutierrez took with him a connection that lasted; something bigger than the ties an athlete keeps with a place they found the ultimate success.
Something was always tugging him back to Oklahoma.
When the Sooners were competing, in any sport, he tuned in. When OU made the Rose Bowl in 2017, he took his son and wore crimson and cream. He watched every pitch of the softball program's second straight national title run this spring.
“The emotion I carry, it’s a different feeling," Gutierrez says. "It’s just something in your heart that you have. You can express it just by cheering and being happy. But it’s something that we carry. People that have won championships here at Oklahoma, you have it in you."
In the years after his professional career, Gutierrez returned to Norman every once in a while. A team reunion here, a game a L. Dale Mitchell Park there, often with his wife, Eloiza.
"This has always been home for me," Gutierrez says. "It wasn’t just winning a national championship here at OU. The people here are nice. I always wanted my family to experience the hospitality that Oklahoma gave to me.”
Gajewski left OU, embarked on a career in the turf business and then turned to softball, working as an assistant at Florida under Walton — his former OU teammate — then taking the top job at Oklahoma State in 2016.
Before Gajewski accepted the gig in Stillwater, former OSU athletic director Mike Holder brought up Gajewski's ties to Norman.
"When he was interviewing me, he told me 'I don’t ever want you to forget where you came from. Why would you ever want to try to forget that? You had the best memories of your entire life there.'," Gajewski recalls.
"It was just the coolest thing because he could have not hired me because I was from OU. It was the complete opposite.”
Several decades removed from 1994, Gajewski relishes the group chat with his former teammates, the one that pops off late at night with photos and stories from the past. He relays stories from his playing days to his Cowgirls in Stillwater.
Somewhere, there's a photo of him atop the dogpile. He's got a big head of hair and gum in his mouth. His eyes are closed and there's a big smile on his face. It's one one of the images that returns to him when he's watching OU from the recruiting trail.
“I’m following every pitch," Gajewski says. "I don’t wear OU stuff — I don’t even own a stitch of OU clothing in my closet because that’s not fair to the people here (in Stillwater). But I still love that baseball team.”
Russ Ortiz is one of two MLB All-Stars from the 1994 Sooners. He's remained connected to the program in small ways.
The 2003 National League wins leader keeps in close contact with OU director of operations Ryan Gaines. Shortly after OU coach Skip Johnson was promoted in 2018, Ortiz played 18 holes with him in a charity golf tournament. For the past two seasons, Ortiz has purchased pizza for fans on the outfield berm every home Saturday in Norman.
His recollections of 1994 poured back when he visited OU and spoke with the team earlier this spring and again over the past few weeks.
“We’re always kind of reliving a lot of those memories through that," Ortiz says. "Because we know it’s not easy. We know what it takes to get there.”
After baseball, Gutierrez began a career in the health industry and started a family. Most of the items he held onto from his playing days, Gutierrez kept hidden away, including the ball from the final out.
"I didn’t want my kids to feel like this guy was a champion," Gutierrez says. "I wanted my kids to enjoy plying baseball. Whatever sport. No pressure."
For years, the ball sat in a box in Orange County. Then, in the winter of 2019, OU invited Gutierrez back as the team honoree for the preseason Diamond Dinner.
“Whenever he decided to come for that event, he brought up the idea about returning the ball and that just really blew everybody away," Gaines, OU's director of operation since 2006, says. "First of all, I don’t think anybody knew that he had the ball. The fact that he wanted to give it back to the program just speaks to the character of the man he is.”
Today, the ball sits locked in the equipment room inside L. Dale Mitchell Park. OU hopes to display it once the stadium's upcoming, $30 million update is complete.
OU second baseman Rick Gutierrez makes a throw to first during practice on June 1, 1994. Photo via The Oklahoman archives
Gaines is certain, in the year of 2022, that if OU clinches another national title this weekend, the ball from the final out won't go missing for another quarter century this time.
"I knew one day I was going to return the ball," Gutierrez says. "Hopefully they have another ball to bring back after this weekend.”
Months after the ball from from the final out in 1994 returned to OU, Gutierrez and his family followed it back to Oklahoma. In the summer of 2019, Gutierrez, his wife Eloiza and their two children moved from California to Moore.
That something, rooted in the spring of 1994, finally pulled him back. This spring, with the Sooners tearing through the NCAA postseason, those same feelings are back too.
"This is our home. We have a special place here in our heart at Oklahoma," Gutierrez says. "I know people talk about the baseball team. But everybody who played on the team, this is our home, man."
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I came to the Tulsa World as an intern in 2019, returned in Aug. 2021 and now cover the Sooners with Eric Bailey. I'm a New Yorker, a graduate of the University of Missouri and an avid soccer (read: fútbol) fan. Let's talk: eli.lederman@tulsaworld.com
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Players of the University of Oklahoma baseball team lift up their coach, Larry Cochell, after winning the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska on June 11, 1994.
Oklahoma shortstop Rich Hills can’t find the handle as Kansas’ Ron Oelschlager slides in safely at second base on May 20, 1994 in Norman.
Oklahoma second baseman Rick Gutierrez fields a grounder during practice June 1, 1994 in Norman.
Oklahoma relief pitcher Bucky Buckles celebrates the final out as the Sooners defeat Georgia Tech, 13-5 to win the College World Series championship, Saturday, June 11, 1994 in Omaha, Neb. Photo via The Oklahoman archives
OU second baseman Rick Gutierrez makes a throw to first during practice on June 1, 1994. Photo via The Oklahoman archives
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