30 years later, ex-Cat Shermet still has ball from historic homer

While researching a column in the Star’s Top 100 series on the greatest sports moments in Tucson history, I learned that former UA outfielder Dave Shermet still has the baseball from his epic walk-off home run that triggered Arizona’s 1986 College World Series championship. Shermet hit a bottom-of-the-ninth homer to beat Maine in the 1986 opener, the final blow in overcoming a 7-0 deficit. I asked Shermet if he had the ball. He said he wasn’t sure but would look for it. A day later he said “unbelievable, but I found the ball in a box in the closet.” Shermet, who lives in Laguna Beach, California, spent more than 20 years as a cruise director on some of the world’s largest cruise ships