Mike Martin passes away at 79. Who was Florida State’s legendary baseball coach?
The collegiate baseball fraternity has lost a pillar of the game. Here, we remember the coach who was synonymous with Florida State’s baseball program.
Florida State’s baseball program and its fans are in mourning this week after reports confirmed the passing of legendary coach Mike Martin. He was 79. Though a cause of death was not given, Martin was known to have been suffering from the effects of Lewy body dementia.
Mike Martin by the numbers
From 1980 all the way to 2019, Mike Martin served as FSU’s coach and it’s safe to say that during that time he made his mark. His 2,029 wins still stand as the most in college baseball history and his career winning percentage of .733 is second highest among coaches with 2,000 games under their belt. During his 30-year tenure, the Seminoles went 2,029-736-4. That of course, is just the tip of the iceberg as he also had a hand in 17 College World Series appearances and two College World Series Finals (1986, 1999).
Martin’s list of achievements doesn’t stop there either. On seven he was named the Atlantic Coast Conference Coach of the Year (1996, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2007, 2009, 2012), and was twice voted Baseball America’s Coach of the Year (2012, 2019). Such was his mark on Florida State, that the school named its field in his honor in 2005. Today, it is the Mike Martin Field at Dick Howser Stadium. As you can probably guess, a College Baseball Hall of Fame induction was a natural step. So, in 2005, that’s exactly what happened.
Where players are concerned, Martin had a hand in the careers of several notable individuals including Deion Sanders (1987-88), J.D. Drew (1995-97), Stephen Drew (2001-04), and Buster Posey (2006-08). There is also the matter of the more than 70 players who he coached and were later named All-Americans, as well as four who won the Golden Spikes Award - baseball’s equivalent of the Heisman Trophy: Mike Fuentes (1981), Mike Loynd (1986), J.D. Drew (1997), and Posey (2008). Incidentally, Martin also played for FSU (1965-66), before a brief stint in the minors with the New York Mets and Detroit Tigers.