STARKVILLE – Mississippi State baseball may not have had the best weekend on the field against Georgia, but the conclusion of Game 3 came with a trip down memory lane to honor a new class in the Ron Polk Ring of Honor.
Chris Stratton and Nat “Buck” Showalter were both in attendance with the family of the late Alex Grammas for the ceremony on Saturday at Humphrey Coliseum to honor the three inductees.
Grammas’ grandson, Paul, gave a passionate speech about the life and family lessons learned from his grandfather. Grammas played for the Bulldogs from 1947-1949 before embarking on a professional playing and coaching career spanning multiple decades.
Stratton, one of the more recent Bulldogs added to the Ring of Honor, recently called it a day on a 10-year career in Major League Baseball.
He remarked that he hoped to get a call from former basketball head coach Rick Stansbury about playing for the Bulldogs, but as one of the top baseball recruits in the state he helped build the first great team under John Cohen in the early 2010s.
“It was one of those things I remember at the time, Ole Miss was preseason ranked No. 4 in the country and State had been on kind of a downward trajectory,” Stratton recalled. “When I ended up committing to State, Bianco was not too happy and couldn’t understand why I made that decision, but growing up going to Mississippi State, my brother was already here, I grew up a Bulldog fan and knew what it was about. Honestly, the decision was pretty easy once they said they wanted me.”
Stratton reached the highest stage of the sport with the Texas Rangers on their 2023 World Series run, and bounced around a couple of different spots before retiring after the 2025 season. Throughout that time, he’s been happy to keep up with the team as a fan, and keep in contact with his fellow Bulldogs in The Show.
“A lot of the guys in the big leagues that played at State, we keep in constant contact, especially with the state of the team,” Stratton said. “A lot of it comes through that, and Ole Miss teammates, we let them know and have some rivalry stuff going on. I’m living in Tupelo, not too far, I was born and raised there. I’ve made it to quite a few games over the years, but it is definitely a different transition in life right now. I’ve really enjoyed being with my family and my kids.”
Showalter only played one season at MSU, but set a program record with a .459 batting average on his way to an All-American selection, going in the fifth round of the MLB Draft to the New York Yankees.
Showalter quickly moved to coaching after his playing days ended, becoming manager of the Yankees in 1992 to start a lengthy career in the dugout. He won four Manager of the Year awards with four different teams in four different decades.
Throughout his time in managing teams at the highest level, he always kept his MSU connections close.
“It’s good, solid baseball,” he said of the program’s reputation in the sport. “There’s a pureness to it. I’m biased, but I’m a bio guy. I can usually look at a bio and have a pretty good idea what I’m getting, especially if I get time to spend with them and their environment, but with Mississippi State people there are certain things as unsafe as it was in my profession, you could assume.
There were different degrees of talent and players and whatever, but they always had a consistent, certain thing that you wanted in your club.”
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