 "Photo: Michelle Connolly")
Five hundred wins anywhere is an accomplishment. To get it in two places is remarkable.
To have both of those numbers not add up to two-thirds of your total win count is almost unreal.
But Longhorns baseball coach Augie Garrido just made that a reality Tuesday with Texas' win over Texas State in Round Rock. Garrido's obese win count got up to 1,651 for his career, and he now sits alongside Jim Morris as one of only two Division I coaches to reach the half-millennium mark in wins at two schools.
Morris did it at Georgia Tech and Miami (Fla.) and is just shy of 1,200 total wins. Garrido did it at Cal State-Fullerton and Texas and has more than 1,600. Both are incredible coaches, but Garrido's got the lead right now.
To say that Garrido has had an impact on college baseball is a grave understatement. With apologies to Tom Selleck, Garrido is Mr. Baseball. Well, Mr. College Baseball, anyway.
Garrido has even influenced pop culture a little, though not as much as Selleck. Garrido played the New York Yankees' manager in the Kevin Costner baseball flick, "For Love of the Game." I didn't care too much for the movie, but to be chosen as a stand-in for Joe Torre on the big screen isn't a bad gig.
Garrido's most recent scene on your TV screen isn't quite out there yet. He's been featured in a documentary called, "Inning by Inning: A portrait of a coach." The director is Richard Linklater, who might still be most famous for directing "Dazed and Confused."
If we go by that picture, there couldn't be a more perfect director/subject combo out there.
Garrido is a California dude with the laid-back attitude to match. When the summer months come rolling around, you can sometimes catch Garrido sporting his shades and a Hawaiian-style shirt while coming to or leaving practice.
Then there are the quotes he gives reporters, which make our job easy and fun. I'm not sure if I'll go my entire career as a sportswriter and hear again some of the phrases he's uttered. Though I wasn't there for this one, the term "Puff the Magic Dragon," is probably never going to make it on my tape recorder. I was sorry I missed that.
But, after covering the Texas baseball team for the two years prior to this one, I've got plenty of funny, inspirational, philosophical and sentimental sentences to choose from.
And, to me, that's why Augustus Edmun Garrido Jr. is such a big part of college baseball. Not only is he probably the greatest baseball mind of my time - and the generation before me - he's as charismatic as they come and might just be the best instructor on this campus.
And knowing I've been acquainted with greatness like that is as real as it gets for me.
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