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Bill Mueller is a member of the Missouri State University Athletics Hall of Fame. (Photo from MSU Athletics)<\/p>\nOne of the greatest players in Missouri State baseball history returns this weekend to help the program unofficially kick off the 2026 season at the annual First Pitch event Saturday inside the Bill Rowe Indoor Training Facility at Hammons Field.<\/p>\n
Retired Bears baseball coach Keith Guttin recalls that Bill Mueller looked to be anything but a hot prospect \u2014 let alone a future American League batting champion \u2014 when Guttin first saw him playing during an American Legion game in St. Louis.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was 1988 or \u201889 and I had heard about this shortstop from St. Louis, from a connection through Charlie Spoonhour,\u201d Guttin said of the late Missouri State basketball coach. \u201cA friend of Charlie was one of Billy\u2019s neighbors. Recruiting was not too sophisticated back then.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guttin said the slightly built Mueller was playing right field for his summer team and his first thought was, \u201cHow is this kid playing right field for his Legion team gonna play shortstop in Division I?\u201d<\/p>\n
But one thing stood out.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe ran harder from right field to the dugout and to first base after he walked than anybody else on the field ran the whole day,\u201d Guttin said of Mueller. \u201cThat stood out for me. I came back the next time and he was playing shortstop and he was good. I kept coming back and watching him over and over and over.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s how you got a real appreciation of how he went about playing the field. He wasn\u2019t real physical, about 5-10 and 155 pounds \u2014 but he was just all ballplayer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mueller became a star for the Bears from 1990-93 and graduated as the school\u2019s all-time leader in nine different offensive categories, including hits (289), singles (222), runs scored (234), total bases (398), walks (154) and stolen bases (65). He earned Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year and ABCA second-team All-America honors as a senior, and his career .376 average remains a Missouri State record for a four-year player.<\/p>\n
Mueller was selected by San Francisco in the 15th round of the 1993 MLB Draft and became the third Bear to reach the Major Leagues and the first to claim a batting title when he led the American League with a .326 mark in 2003. A year later, he became the first former Bear to win a World Series title, as a member of the Boston Red Sox.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He played in more than 1,200 games over an 11-year MLB career that concluded in 2006, collecting 1,229 hits and hitting .291.<\/p>\n
The switch-hitter, who played mostly third base in the big leagues, also became an answer to a trivia question in 2003 as the Red Sox played in Texas. Mueller became the first player in big-league history to hit grand slam home runs from both sides of the plate in the same game. He also hit a solo homer that July night and had nine RBIs in a 14-7 win over the Rangers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The road he traveled through Missouri State was a launching pad.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn that time period, 1990-93, he was our best player, our hardest worker, our toughest guys physically and mentally, all rolled into one,\u201d Guttin said. \u201cHe started really becoming committed to weight lifting and getting his body stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bill Mueller is a member of the Missouri State University Athletics Hall of Fame. (Photo from MSU Athletics)<\/p>\n
Guttin said he coached a lot of players with more natural ability over a 42-season run at Missouri State, but few had those intangible qualities that take the good ones to a level of greatness.<\/p>\n
Mueller\u2019s trip back to Springfield from his home in Phoenix, where he is a volunteer coach for his son\u2019s high school baseball team, also will find him an inductee on Feb. 1 into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame at the Ozark Empire Fairgrounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mueller, who could not be reached for comment, was known as a great teammate in the professional ranks. He has served as a hitting coach for several organizations since his playing days and also had a stint as hitting coach at Arizona State University.<\/p>\n
\u201cBill Mueller is a treasure to the game of baseball and the young players who want to improve their skills while also using the game to help them grow into the young men they hope to be,\u201d former big-league catcher and Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said in an Arizona State news release when Mueller was hired by the Sun Devils.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe game of baseball is rich in tradition and history, but the special people\u00a0who pass on the wisdom of the game and can teach the character to succeed in life are rare,\u201d Matheny added.<\/p>\n
Tickets for Saturday\u2019s First Pitch event are $25 and include dinner at 5:30 p.m. Players from the 2026 Bears will be on hand for photos and autographs plus live and silent auction items. Proceeds go toward the baseball program. For ticket availability \u2014 the event was nearly full as of Jan. 26 \u2014 contact Guttin at KeithGuttin@missouristate.edu<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Missouri Sports Hall of Fame induction luncheon is set for noon Feb. 1 at the Fairgrounds\u2019 East E-Plex. Tickets are $150 apiece. Call (417) 889-3100 for more info.\u00a0<\/p>\n Missouri Sports Hall of Fame inductees<\/p>\n Bill Mueller \u2013 Missouri State Baseball & Boston Red Sox<\/p>\n Dustin Colquitt \u2013 Kansas City Chiefs<\/p>\n Matt Gifford \u2013 Cardinals baseball executive<\/p>\n Rob Bowers \u2013 Richmond High School football coach<\/p>\n Darrell \u201cSmitty\u201d Smith \u2013 Boxing coach<\/p>\n Borland Golf Brothers of Carthage \u2013 Glen, Joe & Gary<\/p>\n Richard Hackett \u2013 Drury University diving coach<\/p>\n Missouri State University 1989 & 1990 Football Playoff Teams<\/p>\n Crowder College Softball Era of 1982-1992<\/p>\n J.P. Sell \u2013 Fishing<\/p>\n Tom Beck \u2013 Lexington High School track & field coach<\/p>\n Kevin Kelly \u2013 Jefferson City sports radio<\/p>\n Jeff Starkweather \u2013 Joplin High School coach & athletic director<\/p>\n Tonya Peck \u2013 Fair Grove High School volleyball coach<\/p>\n Bill Barton \u2013 State Fair CC basketball coach<\/p>\n Mercy Sports Medicine Athletic Trainers & Support Staff<\/p>\n Eric Johnson \u2013 Webb City basketball coach<\/p>\n Stan Melton \u2013 Ice Bears founder<\/p>\n Thompson Sales \u2013 John Q. Hammons Founder\u2019s Award<\/p>\n Rick Beaman \u2013 President\u2019s Award<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Lyndal Scranton is a Springfield native who has covered sports in the Ozarks for more than 35 years, witnessing nearly every big sports moment in the region during the last 50 years. The Missouri Sports Hall of Famer, Springfield Area Sports Hall of Famer and live-fire cooking enthusiast also serves as PR Director for Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Missouri and is co-host of the Tailgate Guys BBQ Podcast. Contact him at Lscranton755@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @LyndalScranton. More by Lyndal Scranton<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the greatest players in Missouri State baseball history returns this weekend to help the program unofficially…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,39623,71310,50125,33773,12270],"class_list":["post-539599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-baseball","tag-bill-mueller","tag-keith-guttin","tag-missouri-sports-hall-of-fame","tag-missouri-state-baseball","tag-topsports1"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115963795563984856","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLyndal Scranton\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n