March 8, 2014
LAS VEGAS - Mike Scott, one of the top pitchers in Pepperdine baseball history and a former National League Cy Young Award winner, was inducted into the West Coast Conference's Hall of Honor on Saturday morning.
The 2014 Hall of Honor Brunch & Induction Ceremony took place at the Orleans Hotel in the midst of the WCC Basketball Championships.
Scott began his induction speech remembering the fact that he didn't have any scholarship offers out of high school, and was about to attend junior college.
"I got the call (from head coach Wayne Wright), did I want to go to Pepperdine? I didn't know him, I didn't know anyone on the team, but I knew Pepperdine was in Malibu and I knew I could spend four years there," Scott said.
"The first thing I found out was that we had a great team, some great players," he added. "Wayne Wright got good people on the team. The guys I played with made my transition from high school to college as smooth as possible. They were fun guys to play with, and we were successful, which makes it fun."
Scott also said that he still has fond memories of Pepperdine.
"You look back and it's such a short time in your life that you're in college, but for me it was very impactful," he said. "I couldn't have been happier. The way I got there was a fluke, but if I could go back and select any college in the country to go to, it would absolutely be Pepperdine. I got what you should get out of college. What a university is supposed to do is have you ready for your next step in life, and I was ready. I got what I needed."
In a prerecorded video that introduced Scott, former teammate Pat Murphy said: "He had a quiet confidence about him. He didn't say a lot but had a great arm. He went out there and just did it, didn't make a big deal of himself. He was a leader that way. He was a great guy. And he's the exact same guy 40 years later as he was as a freshman. He's humble, a great family man and a great person."
Scott also thanked his friends and family, includes his wife Vicki. He said they celebrated their 37th anniversary last week.
Scott turned in a decorated three-year career (1974-76) at Pepperdine. The right-hander made an immediate impact for the Waves, capturing WCC Freshman of the Year honors in 1974. A three-time All-WCC selection, Scott departed the Malibu campus as Pepperdine's career record-holder for wins (26), strikeouts (232) and games started (42). Scott still ranks fourth in career ERA (2.10) and tossed a perfect game against Cal Lutheran on Feb. 17, 1976.
During his collegiate career, Pepperdine won three consecutive WCC titles and advanced to the NCAA Tournament each year. Scott was a 1975 All-District VIII selection. Named to the WCC's 50 Greatest Student-Athletes list in 2001, Scott was also selected to the WCC/Rawlings 40th Anniversary Baseball Team.
After being selected by the New York Mets in the second round of the 1976 Major League Draft, Scott enjoyed a remarkable professional career and played 13 years in the majors with the New York Mets (1979-82) and the Houston Astros (1983-91). One of just a handful of pitchers to ever record a no-hitter and 300 strikeouts in the same season, Scott was a three-time All-Star and started for the National League in the 1987 Midsummer Classic.
Scott captured the 1986 National League Cy Young Award after posting an 18-10 record with a 2.22 ERA to go along with a league-leading 306 strikeouts. On September 26 the Santa Monica native pitched a 2-0 no-hitter against the San Francisco Giants in the Astrodome to clinch the N.L. West division title. The Astros fell to the Mets, the eventual World Series Champions, but Scott was so dominant in his starts in game one and four that he was the 1986 NLCS MVP - the first ever selected from the losing team. As a 20-game winner in 1989, Scott finished second in the Cy Young voting. The Astros retired his No. 33 jersey in 1992.
The nine other inductees at this year's event were Ed Eyestone (BYU cross country), Kelley Cunningham Spink (Gonzaga volleyball), Jeff Fryer (Loyola Marymount basketball), Keith Swagerty (Pacific basketball), Laura Sale O'Connell (Portland basketball), Tracy Morris Sanders (Saint Mary's basketball), Jose Luis Noriega (San Diego tennis), Ollie Johnson (San Francisco basketball) and Leslie Osborne (Santa Clara soccer).
Pepperdine's previous five inductees into the WCC Hall of Honor were Doug Christie, Gail Hopkins, Wayne Wright, Dana Jones and Katherine Hull.
