MAKING HISTORY AT THE 2025 COLLEGE WORLD SERIES

Grass-Stained Glory: Murray’s Field of Dreams Finally Blossoms

Lawn-mowing coach and small-town school make a Cinderella story at the College World Series

Photo of Murray State baseball coach Dan Skirka and his son. Photo courtesy of YouTube.

There’s a certain sound to grass being mowed in the late hours of the afternoon. A hum that rolls through the aluminum bleachers at quaint Johnny Reagan Field, echoes in the neighboring colossal Roy Stewart football stadium, through nearby trees, and across the street at a local church. In Murray, Kentucky, that peaceful, soothing sound comes from a man in a coaching pullover, steering a riding mower in tight, deliberate lines across the diamond.

It’s not a metaphor. Nor is it the opening to a pastoral poem to small-town USA. No, it’s just what happens regularly in Murray.

Murray State Racer baseball coach Dan Skirka does a pristine job of mowing his team’s baseball field. Infield. Outfield. Between the lines and outside the lines. Every week.

And, his baseball team, champions of the Missouri Valley Conference, just mowed down Duke (yes, that Duke) in the NCAA’s Super Regionals at the Blue Devils’ home stadium. A week earlier, the Racers mowed down powerhouses №10 Mississippi State (twice) and Georgia Tech in the Oxford Regionals.

Wow. Just wow.

Now, the lawn-mowing coach has his well-manicured, sharp-fielding underdog Racer team are headed to Omaha, Nebraska, and the College World Series for the very first time.

Murray State (enrollment 8,111) will be in Omaha with eight other Super Regional champs, including powerhouses like UCLA (the Racers’ Saturday opponent), LSU, Arkansas, Louisville, Arizona, and Oregon State. Oh, and fellow Cinderella and underdog Coastal Carolina (enrollment 11,225).

Skirka, a former college shortstop, just keeps mowing down opponents…and that field. Johnny Reagan Field won’t mow itself. Could you imagine Nick Saban manicuring the football fields at Alabama, or John Calipari cleaning the basketball courts at Arkansas?

Johnny Reagan Field is a crackerbox facility with a seating capacity of only 800. Eight hundred. No zeroes accidentally left out. Yep, three mere sections of aluminum, but plenty of grassy, hilly areas to spread a blanket and sit…and that’s it. Many junior college baseball stadiums and even some high school fields have more impressive venues.

Smalltown, USA, for sure. And its proud program is headed to Omaha.

It’s easy to forget how time can be measured in mowed lines. In bags of grass. In the slow circles of a field prepared by hand, over and over, season after season. Whether there’s a really big deal, a talk-of-the-town regional bid on the line, or just another typical sweaty day of practice. History not only sits in museums. Oh no, it’s also made on dusty baseball diamonds and memorable, winning trips to Oxford, Mississippi, or Durham, North Carolina, where history was made in magical but chaotic fashion on Monday.

Ahead 5–4 with two outs in the ninth inning, the Racers thought they had won the game — and the Super Regional — against heavily-favored Duke when the umpires ruled a Duke player had gone out of the baseline to break up a double play and take out the Racer shortstop.

As soon as the umpire made the familiar “Out!” sign, the Racer players swarmed the field madly and dogpiled and buried relief pitcher Graham Kelham on the mound. The celebration was on. Then it was off after reviews said the runner hadn’t interfered.

Talk about crazy endings.

After players were peeled off, the crushed Kelham had to regroup and try and record the third out again. Talk about pressure. Kelham fortunately got Duke’s first baseman, Jake Hyde, to ground out to first base, and celebration №2 was on. This one was for real.

After ESPN viewers watched the Murray players hysterically swarm the field a second time, the cameras cut to Coach Skirka as his 9-year-old son, Keegan, runs and leaps into his dad’s arms. Skirka is then interviewed by ESPN reporters over headsets.

Keegan, though, quickly abandoned Dad to go celebrate with the joyful, euphoric Racer players on the diamond.

“Sorry, I’ve got to go, guys,” Skirka tells ESPN, as he is quickly surrounded by his entire team, then given a colorful Gatorade-flavored shower.

The guy is a winner, and it’s shown in the love for his family, the connection he has with his players, and his dedication to the program. Even mowing the school’s baseball field where the journey first began.

I arrived in the small western Kentucky town (population 18,000) in the summer of ’78 when I was 12. I was placed on a Little League team halfway through the season. It just happened to be the damn Yankees, the best darn team in the entire league, oozing with talent. It taught me that baseball was a really big deal in Murray. Kids, coaches, and parents took their baseball seriously. Every pitch. Every practice.

We played on scuffed-up fields with chain-linked dugouts and batted with warped aluminum bats. It was a small-town vibe, but the passion was there. And real. I had a minister for a coach, and he preached fundamentals every single practice. He was as intense as a Sunday morning sermon.

That town loved its baseball, whether it was summer nights of Little League baseball, Murray High School Tiger baseball, or the beloved university team and its winning ways.

Across town, on the Murray State campus, the ping of the aluminum bats could be heard weekday and weekend afternoons in the spring as the Thoroughbreds (as they were called back then) were rattling off winning season after winning season—twenty-seven to be precise.

Legendary Hall of Fame coach Johnny Reagan led them to the regionals in 1975 and one win away from the College World Series in 1979. So close to a trip to Omaha.

Reagan, who coached at MSU for thirty-six years, built a winning program and culture that captured eleven Ohio Valley Conference titles, amassing an incredible record of 776–508–11.

The old field was even smaller, even rougher, and didn’t even have any bleachers back then. Just concrete seating embedded in the grassy hill. It was located at the center of the campus, but it felt like the center of the world.

It was a spectacular view to take in as students or professors crossed a bridge over traffic, saw the somewhat sparkling diamond come into view, and heard the beautiful aluminum ringing out like a warning bell for awaiting outfields. Onlookers had to, just had to, stop, sit on the grass…just for a few pitches…and appreciate the rhythm of the game, the thundering sound of aluminum hitting a leather ball, see the clean vacuum fielding of the shortstop, or the next Nolan Ryan-like overpowering strikeout.

Time seemed to stand still. It was a comforting feeling. Like home.

I remember a road trip to see the Ohio Valley Conference championship at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green. Scorebook in hand, chewing and spitting out sunflower seeds, I could feel the sweat of my palms as I watched, cheered, and clapped for every Murray State batter. I scribbled in my scorebook every walk, strikeout, and base hit, hoping, wishing, praying I could will the Racers to victory with my pencil.

I couldn’t.

Murray fell behind early, 3–0, rallied to tie it, then watched the game sadly slip away in the tenth inning when the Hilltoppers hit a game-winning, heartbreaking walk-off home run. Game and season over. And the Racers’ chances for a regional trip were dashed. Yet again. I thought that was the year. Another disappointment. Just like in 1979.

So, Monday, when the Racers finally broke through and punched their ticket to Omaha, it was a huge relief. I wasn’t just surprised, but shocked. I was quiet. The kind of quiet when something you hoped for so long finally arrives. Not loud, no screaming. Just the belief that it had finally, after all these years, happened. Amazing.

Murray isn’t the type of town that demands attention. I can still see the smiling faces, young and old, sitting at the wooden picnic benches of the local Dairy Queen, just a few blocks from my middle school. I can taste the delicious chili dogs, the limeade at the downtown drugstore, or the cheese oozing off the zesty pizza at Pagilia’s, and their free refills on Coke machines.

This place genuinely cares about its university, its sports teams, and its community.

Skirka gives a damn. He’s far from flashy. He doesn’t do long speeches. He thanks God after they’d tackled the super accomplishment of winning the Super Regional. He’s humble. He’s Murray.

He knows how to mow every divot in that damn, less than glorious field. He knows every mile his team has run to earn this shot at forever. And now, after many long-lost decades of almosts, could-have-beens, and oh-so-closes, Murray State is finally, finally, headed to the Promised Land.

A program’s successes can be measured in titles and trophies. Or you can measure it in other ways. It can also be measured in ride-on mower streaks, Little League dust, slurps of Dairy Queen slushes and chili stains, and the dedication of Murray State fans who never stop showing up, cheering feverishly on sunny Saturday afternoons, sunburnt, in the cozy 800-seat bleachers at Reagan Field. Proudly.

So, for those of us around long enough to remember the days of Johnny Reagan commanding the Thoroughbred dugout and running the program on elbow grease, this is more than a baseball story.

It’s proof that cutting grass matters. Every blade. Sometimes the smallest towns can truly grow the strongest roots.

And that, finally, the dream is not just alive.

It’s on the biggest and grandest stage in all of college baseball.

In Omaha. The heartland of America.

For the whole country to witness.

Thanks for reading my story.