Guidry, Ron

[ULexcite]

Why isn't Ron Guidry in the UL Hall of Fame?

[Turbine]

Personally I think the Hall of Fame needs a tier system.

Right now Ron Guidry doesnt qualify for the HOF, because he turned pro before graduating. Side note Brian Michell doesn't qualify for the HoF for the same reason but I heard he plans on getting his degree after football.

A tier system or wings of the Hall would get every deserving athlete in the fold.

[Sanchez]

Ron Guidry is a hall of famer if there ever was one.

[ULexcite]

Originally posted by Sanchez
Ron Guidry is a hall of famer if there ever was one.

I heard that a Beach Boy was being given a degree by Northeastern University. What has a Beach Boy done for them that Ron Guidry hasn't done for UL?

[ULexcite]

Why was my title changed from Ron Guidry to Guidry, Ron?

[RaginRash]

Maybe it was for archiving purposes? This site is like a historical library of UL stuff! Something fans have needed for a long time!

[California Cajun]

Side note Brian Michell doesn't qualify for the HoF for the same reason but I heard he plans on getting his degree after football.

I know at least Mitchell is close to graduating, so I think it's a matter of time for both of them.

Dwight "Bo" Lamar graduated in something like 1987, and his eligibility ended in 1973, so I predict that Mitchell will come back and finish.

When Blackjack Landry was admitted postumously in 1999, that kind of opened Pandora's Box. I want some consideration given to Don Allen, UL broadcaster for 30 years, 31 if you count his work on KLAF for the baseball games this season.

What I'm concerned about is that people who cast their lot with UL and made it big time are properly rewarded. Future recruits will be watching.......

[NewsCopy]

University of Louisiana's Ron Guidry

NEW YORK — A prestigious lineup of all-time New York Yankee greats will return to Yankee Stadium on Saturday when the Yankees honor Lafayette native Ron Guidry in ceremonies prior to their 3:05 p.m. game against the Baltimore Orioles.

‘Ron Guidry Day’ ceremonies will begin at 2:30 p.m.

Scheduled to participate in the tribute are Hall of Famers Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford, Reggie Jackson, Phil Rizzuto and Dave Winfield as well as former Guidry teammates Don Mattingly, Rick Cerone, Goose Gossage, Graig Nettles and D. Tidrow.

In addition, all-time Yankee great Hank Bauer and Helen Hunter, widow of former teammate and Hall of Famer “Catfish’’ Hunter, are also scheduled to attend.

UL Lafayette head baseball coach Tony Robichaux is among the local group of family and friends also scheduled to attend the ceremony.

All fans in attendance Saturday will receive a commemorative Ron Guidry Day No. 49 pin.

The rest of the story

[NewsCopy]

Pubished June 29, 1995 Times Picayune   Through all the games, through 14 years of pitching in the major leagues, the memory of a college game in Baton Rouge between Southwestern Louisiana and LSU still inflames Ron Guidry. The year was 1968. Guidry, a scrawny left-hander from Lafayette, had thrown two days before for the Ragin' Cajuns and wasn't even scheduled to pitch. "When we got to the field, they jumped on us verbally," Guidry said. "They were degrading us, all kind of stuff. They made it clear that we were not fit to be on the field playing LSU. They didn't even take infield. Me, I've got my tennis shoes on, my glove is in the locker room. But the abuse kept on. I walk out on the field, all 130 pounds of me, and they called me everything under the sun. Then they started getting on my heritage. "You can get on my clothes, you can get on my looks, but don't get on my heritage, Jack. I went back to the dugout, started taking off my tennis shoes and I told coach, 'I'm in.' He was tired of it too, so he said 'OK.' " If LSU had only known. "I can't remember for sure, but I struck out the first 10 or 11 guys," Guidry said. "One guy fouled a ball off, and that was as much as they got. I left after the fifth inning when we were winning like 8-0. I sent a note to the LSU dugout, 'This is too easy. It's no fun. I'm not getting anything out of it.' " Guidry's major league career included 170 victories, all with the New York Yankees, including three World Series games. He won the Cy Young Award in 1978 after a career-best 25-3 record and played on two World Series champions. Yet he is defined more by his Cajun heritage than his incredible pitching career. The eight-parish area of Louisiana in and around Lafayette known as Acadiana is where Guidry calls home. Yesterday. Today. Always. Even in his years with the Yankees, Guidry considered himself only a visitor in New York. As soon as the season was over, he was back to his beloved south Louisiana. "When people say roots, that's what it is," said Guidry, who lives out in the country on 75 acres of land near Lafayette with his wife Bonnie and three children. "It's tough to describe why you keep coming back to a place: the people, the culture, the family ties and the closeness of the people. "People come through that area all the time and say how friendly the people are. You hear stories about people having a flat tire, someone picks them up, helps them out, and they end up going to their house and eating dinner and staying for a couple days. That's the kind of people we are, and that's why I continue to go back home. I've found no other place that could meet that." The oldest of two sons born to Roland and Grace Guidry, Ron's family traces its roots to the first French Catholics who came to the area from Nova Scotia in the middle 1700s. Roland Guidry worked a variety of jobs, with the railroad, some carpentry work on the side, and also served in the Naval Reserve. "He did a little bit of everything to help us get by," Guidry said. "We also did a lot of hunting and fishing. We looked at it as something you did not only for recreation but for food. I learned a little of what it was like to live off the land. My dad had a job, but yet he didn't have a lot of money. So when the hunting and fishing season would come, you could stock your freezer with fish and wild game." Guidry began playing baseball at age 7 and excelled almost immediately. He started as an outfielder, but it didn't take long for coaches to notice his strong arm and moved him to pitcher. "I remember the first time they made me go in and pitch," Guidry said. "I threw the ball to the top of the screen. The way you throw from the outfield is different from the way you throw from the mound. But once I adjusted, I didn't have any problem. I knew I could throw harder than just about anybody else." Even though his high school didn't have baseball, the local American Legion program provided Guidry enough opportunity to earn a scholarship to USL. Charlie Bordes, a New Orleans native who played with Guidry at USL, remembers the first time they practiced together. "When he first came out, I couldn't believe him," said Bordes, who now lives in Phoenix. "Here was this skinny kid, his hat didn't fit him right, his pants were really baggy. I started warming up with him, and all of a sudden my glove started popping and moving back. Nobody had heard of Ron Guidry. Everybody laughed at him until he started throwing the ball." Al Torragano was the catcher for the Ragin' Cajuns. He remembers Guidry as a take-no-quarter competitor. "Nobody could handle him but me," said Torragano, now a New Orleans-based insurance agent. "His ball just exploded. He also was a mean competitor and a great athlete. He probably could have started on the football team. He could run the 100 probably under 10 flat. Just a great athlete. And we had a great team. We kind of just all wound up there together and had an awesome team." And a great time. Guidry supplemented his baseball scholarship by playing drums in a local band - Little Kenneth and the Rhythm Makers. "That's how I made money to go out on, but not during the season," he said. "I was an athlete, and I wasn't supposed to be out all night. But we'd play Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. We played lots of R&B, stuff by groups like Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, B.B. King and The Temptations." Guidry gave up the drumming after he turned pro but still kept his hand in an interesting way once he became an established pitcher with the Yankees. "I had a set of drums set up in a room at the stadium," Guidry said. "The head groundskeeper had a key, and I had a key. Every day I'd go in there and play, because it keeps your wrists strong. When I was going to pitch, I'd go play for maybe 10 or 15 minutes to loosen up. When it started to be known that I was playing, guys started sitting in with instruments." It was a rare outgoing personality quirk for the low-key Guidry, who while in New York found himself on a team full of characters - from owner George Steinbrenner to Manager Billy Martin, to players such as slugger Reggie Jackson, catcher Thurman Munson and pitchers Catfish Hunter and Sparky Lyle. Lyle immortalized the shenanigans in a 1979 book called "The Bronx Zoo." "Gid didn't get involved in any of the craziness going on," Lyle said recently. "He pretty much kept to himself and minded his own business. That was a rare thing on that team, because there was something crazy going on just about every day." Guidry said he insulated himself from the madness around him by keeping quiet. "My job was to pitch, and that was it," he said. "I didn't live in the city. I bet I didn't go into the city 20 times the whole time I was there, except to pitch." Guidry said he basically got along well with everyone on the Yankees, including the volatile Martin. "Billy was my favorite as manager," Guidry said. "He was always there for me. He did a lot for me on and off the field. He was hard to play for at times, but once you proved to him that you could do your job, you were his No. 1 guy. He never once took me out until after he talked to me. He'd walk out to the mound and say, 'What do you think?' I'd say, 'I think you better get the ____ off my mound.' Or I'd say, 'I've thrown 120 pitches. I'm done.' But he wouldn't motion for a guy out of the pen until he heard what I had to say. That was respect." It was easy to see why Martin respected Guidry. He was all business on the mound, challenging hitters with his fastball and slider, giving them his best. "Robin Yount told me that he loved to hit against Guidry, but he hated to hit against Guidry," Bordes said. "He loved it because he knew Ronnie was going to come right after him. He wasn't going to get cute. But he hated it because he was so tough to hit." Guidry credits Lyle for teaching him the slider that became a deadly part of his repertoire. Lyle said it was no big deal. "I just showed him how to throw it and what to check for when it didn't work," Lyle said. "He did the rest, and it became a ____ of a pitch for him, I can tell you that." Guidry made it work for 14 years. He walked away with no regrets. Guidry loved baseball, but he resented the time it took away from his family. He and his wife Bonnie have two daughters, Jamie 18, and Danielle 9, and a son, Brandon, 15. The Guidrys are surrounded by family and friends. Their land is bordered on the west by Ron's best friend, Bobby Badeaux, to the east by an uncle and cousins. Ron and Bonnie's parents live a couple miles away. "I really haven't done anything for the last several years," said Guidry, who retired in 1988. "When I retired from the game, I decided what I was going to do was do nothing for a few years to pick up a lot of time I'd missed with my family and kids. I missed a lot of things, because I woke up one day and my oldest child was a teen-ager. I never wanted the game to consume my life. I wanted to have fun and to do the best job I could do while I was doing it, but I didn't want to live and breathe baseball. It's a great game; I enjoyed it tremendously, but when I gave it up, I said, 'That's it.' " Guidry said a typical day finds him getting up to help the kids off to school, then tending to odd jobs about the property. With 75 acres, there's always work to be done. Just cutting the grass around the house is a two-day job. "There's always something to do where I live," Guidry said. "I'm never bored. I've got a wonderful life." The Times Picayune by: CHARLES BENNETT

[CajunFan64]

I am posting about this subject although I don't really know too much about it, to tell you the truth I was waiting for someone with better information to comment on it. Since no one has I will, I just heard that former Ragin Cajun Ace Ron Guidry was just hired by the Yankees to be their new pitching coach. I realize there are not too many Yankee fans in the deep south but, I think its good for Ron to be back with his old Bronx Bombers.

PS: Any other information would be greatly appreciated

Geaux Cajuns

[AirBill]

True story. Here's the official press release:

http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/p...=.jsp&c_id=nyy

Ron Guidry rejoins Yankees as pitching coach; Joe Kerrigan named bullpen coach

The New York Yankees announced today that Ron Guidry, a three-time 20-game winner who compiled 170 wins in a 14-year career in pinstripes, will join Joe Torre's 2006 coaching staff as Pitching Coach.

The Yankees also named Joe Kerrigan, who has spent 14 seasons as a major- and minor-league pitching coach, their Bullpen Coach.

Guidry, 55, was the Yankees' co-captain-with Willie Randolph-from 1986 through 1989. A four-time American-League All-Star, he remains in the Top Ten on the Yankees' all-time list in games pitched (368), innings pitched (2,392.0), wins (170), winning percentage (.651), strikeouts (1,778) and shutouts (26).

He compiled one of the most dominating seasons in baseball history in 1978 and became known as "Louisiana Lightning." Guidry went 25-3 with a 1.74 earned run average in leading the Yankees to a dramatic comeback-from 14.0 games behind the Boston Red Sox-to capture their second straight World Championship. From the All-Star break in 1977 through 1978, he was an incredible 35-5. In 1978, he compiled a franchise-record 248 strikeouts en route to a unanimous selection as the American League's Cy-Young-award recipient. On June 17, 1978 vs. the California Angels at Yankee Stadium, Guidry shattered the club record for strikeouts in a single game with 18.

A spring-training instructor with the Yankees since 1990, Guidry had his number 49 retired by the club on August 23, 2003 and a plaque in his honor was unveiled in Yankee Stadium's famed Monument Park.

[NewsCopy]

Ron Guidry won 170 games, the 1978 Cy Young Award and a pair of World Series titles with the New York Yankees, and his No. 49 is immortalized in Monument Park at Yankee Stadium. Now, the Northside High product and former University of Louisiana star will try to help New York's return to prominence as the team's new pitching coach. "What intrigues me is the chance to be there and maybe lend some insight and some help," said Guidry, who has helped Yankees pitchers in spring training since 1990. "I've spoken to my family, and they're thrilled about it. It's an honor. I said maybe I should go give it a shot before I get too old. You need to do that kind of stuff when you're young. I've felt if the time was right, maybe it was something I should look at in the future. "Fortunately for me, it came to pass." The rest of the story Bruce Brown bbrown@theadvertiser.com