By the turn of the century, only one player from Arizona's 1986 national championship baseball team remained active. All of the others had moved on. One became a high school baseball coach, three became financial analysts, one a cab driver, another a car salesman and one a cruise director for a luxury liner.
Life after baseball has mostly been good to the '86 champs. One coaches for the Mets. Another is the batting coach of the Yankees.
Gil Heredia, who went 16-3, was the last of the '86 Wildcats to let go of the game. He pitched his final inning Sept. 19, 2001. He gave up a single to Texas shortstop Alex Rodriguez and ended the inning, and his career, when Rangers designated hitter Rafael Palmeiro popped out to short.
"It's funny," Heredia says now, "I remember the first pro game I ever pitched: June 18, 1987. I played for the Everett Giants in the Northwest League. The first guy to get a hit off me was a 17-year-old kid, Ken Griffey Jr. Home run."
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Griffey, who retired last year, is 41 now. Life rolls on, with or without baseball.
The Wildcats of 1986 will reassemble on campus this week to celebrate the 25th anniversary of that blessed season.
Gary Alexander, a baseball coach at Freedom High School near San Francisco, the man who pitched a complete-game victory to beat Florida State in the title game, plans to return. So does Dave Rohde, starting shortstop who went on to play for the Houston Astros. Rohde, married with two children, is the director of financial reporting for a Scottsdale investment firm.
"The number of players who have gone on to be successful is impressive," says Tucsonan Steve Strong, an All-Pac-10 catcher who is now an investment official for Merrill Lynch. "It speaks to the influence of our coaches - Jerry Kindall, Jim Wing and Jerry Stitt. They were the driving forces."
The '86 Wildcats became, among other professions, engineers, psychologists and mortgage brokers.
But in 1986, the pursuit of the big leagues was foremost for all.
Before moving on to their non-baseball-playing lives, the starters from the 1986 championship game participated in 5,179 minor-league games. First baseman Todd Trafton stayed in the minors until 1995 (760 games). Others, like then-UA career saves leader Joe Estes, left the minors in 1990 after reaching Class AA (401 innings). He returned to Tucson and is working in the financial industry.
Four regulars - Heredia, Rohde, third baseman Chip Hale and second baseman Tommy Hinzo - combined to play in 778 big-league games.
Heredia, who has returned to baseball as a Class A pitching coach, refers to this as "the cycle of life."
This week's reunion won't be entirely about happy times. The club's starting right fielder, Gar Millay, won't be able to attend. He is undergoing treatment for brain cancer in his hometown of San Diego.
"It rattles you," says Strong. "Gar was my first roommate; we shared a dorm together as freshmen. He was a great teammate who would do anything for you. He was such a good ballplayer; he hit a home run against Florida State in that championship game and wasn't influenced by the pressure. He was always up to a situation of that magnitude."
If anything, Millay was a gamer: He played in 197 consecutive games for Arizona (1984-86), at three positions. He made the 1985 All-Pac-10 team.
After playing six seasons in the minor leagues, reaching Class AAA in the Rangers system, Millay returned to his hometown and worked as a sports agent and, later, in development, helping to fund research for such things as cancer. And now, at 45, he is in a fight far more meaningful than any baseball game.
"Gar is a fighter," says Heredia. "We'll all be thinking about him this weekend."
The '86 Wildcats didn't win the Pac-10, Kindall wasn't the league's Coach of the Year, and none of the four future major-leaguers came close to winning the conference Player of the Year award. All they did was win when they had to.
They won the NCAA regional, beating Texas on the Longhorns' field. At the College World Series, they twice beat Florida State pitcher Mike Loynd, who went to Omaha with a 19-1 record and the most feared reputation in college baseball. They overcame a 7-0 deficit to beat Maine on pinch hitter Dave Shermet's home run.
"I didn't know much about the history of UA baseball when I played there, but now I know all about it and am proud to be a small part of it," says Heredia. "This weekend I'm going to wear my World Series championship ring, even if I have to re-size it."
