This story was published in the March 23, 1980, edition of the Lewiston Tribune.
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“The rules! Don’t tell me about the damn rules!” Bobo Brayton screamed at the umpire. “I helped write the rules!”
Those were some of the last words Frederick Charles “Bobo” Brayton said before the umpire booted him out of the baseball game.
That incident, which occurred in Lewiston in 1976, is part of the legend Brayton will someday leave at Washington State University.
It also says something about the makeup of the man.
Brayton is all baseball — old-school baseball — when he’s on the field. He stands in the third base coaching box, wearing his crimson batting helmet as he flashes signals, yells encouragement to his players and cusses the umpires.
Off the field, he does help write the rules.
Brayton is one of the main men in college baseball today.
He’s served on the NCAA committees that make the rules and run the College World Series. Next year he’ll take over the presidency of the American Association of Collegiate Baseball Coaches.
Brayton is also a winner. In 18 seasons his teams have won or shared 12 straight Pacific-10 Northern Division titles. Brayton went over the 600-win mark last weekend when the Cougars went undefeated and won the Banana Belt tournament in Lewiston.
Sometime this week, he’ll probably surpass Arthur “Buck” Bailey and become WSU’s all-time winningest baseball coach. He needs 604 wins to do it.
Going into the season, he ranked sixth among the nation’s active coaches in winning percentage and third in number of wins.
And there are other sides to Brayton. He’s a farmer. He raises wheat, cattle and horses on 150 acres near Pullman.
His passion, right after baseball, is hunting dogs. He prefers German shorthairs and Labrador retrievers and uses them to hunt and retrieve the pheasant and ducks he pursues each fall.
And Bobo Brayton is also part revolutionary.
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Brayton wants to help revolutionize college baseball — not the way it’s played, but when. He wants to forget playing games in sleet storms and practicing when it’s so cold the air hurts your lungs.
He wants to break tradition, to play college baseball in the summer when college kids usually go home and most of the campus is deserted.
“We have never been able to present college baseball in its finest form,” Brayton said.
Brayton feels playing in the spring is detrimental to most of the colleges in the country.
“Eighty percent of the schools in the country are in what I call the cold zone,” Brayton said. “And we’re trying to keep up with people in the warm zones.
“We can do it equipment-wise, stadium-wise and coaching-wise, but we can’t change the weather,”
Under his plan, the players would attend the summer session and then perhaps vacation during another part of the school year. Many schools are already on a four-quarters system, Brayton said.
The season would run from mid-April through July.
How much support is there for summer baseball? “A lot,” Brayton said. He’s on an NCAA committee studying the plan.
“What could really develop is that the entire personality of baseball, along with the people playing it, would change,” Brayton said.
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The complete version of this story can be read online at lmtribune.com/flashback/
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Brayton said seven of the 10 coaches in the Pacific-10 are interested in playing summer ball, and “it would seem to be a natural for the Nor-Pac,” he said. The University of Idaho and Gonzaga compete in the Nor-Pac.
“I don’t think it’s very far away. It wouldn’t surprise me to see it in the next two or three years,” Brayton said.
Another reason Brayton likes the idea is that schools in the north will be better able to recruit against Sun Belt schools. He said quite often the best players in Washington end up going to school in Arizona or southern California because of the weather.
“It might always still be that way, but at least we’ll have a better chance of getting those players.
“My thinking is, ‘Why should all the Reggie Jacksons and Sal Bandos be alumni of Arizona State?”
The summer baseball plan isn’t new — it’s been proposed before, but not many people have been taking it seriously up until now.
It’s also been proposed that professional baseball use the college leagues for a developmental program and pick up at least part of the tab.
Brayton doesn’t oppose the pros becoming involved, but he does think the money would have to be “laundered” somehow, perhaps through the NCAA or through the conferences.
Summer baseball is just one of Brayton’s crusades. He wants to provide Cougar fans with a game they can watch in comfort. He’d also like to give them a great place to watch it in.
Washington State is currently rebuilding its baseball field. The old Bailey Field, named after Brayton’s predecessor, is now the construction site of a new track and field stadium. The baseball field has been moved to a site near the WSU golf course, situated southeast of the Performing Arts Coliseum.
“It’s going to be a beautiful setting,” Brayton said. The infield will be dirt mixed with crushed red brick, much like Dodger Stadium.
Brayton would like permanent, grandstand-type seating for 2,500 to 3,500.
He would also like to add lights and is currently trying to raise money to do that.
Money for the basic relocation of the field is being donated by the Cougar Club and some student fees are also being used. Brayton is trying to raise the money for the extras.
The lights are part of his plans for summer baseball. Without night games, there would be little fan support for play during the summer.
Brayton said building a new stadium has long been one of his goals at WSU. He planned to upgrade the old Bailey Field before the Martin Stadium relocation came along.
When Brayton took the WSU job in 1962, he wasn’t sure it was the kind of job he wanted to keep the rest of his life.
He came to Pullman from Yakima Valley College, where he was the head baseball coach for 11 years and head football coach for six.
Before making the move to Pullman, he already had made a couple of career decisions. He turned down a grant to attend the University of Texas to study community college administration.
Brayton said friends told him he wouldn’t want to be a baseball coach all his life — that he should set his sights higher.
But he doesn’t see it that way. He thinks there’s a lot more to coaching baseball than hitting infield and teaching a kid how to swing a bat.
“It’s a major project of ours to graduate kids from Washington State University and to be a part of their lives,” Brayton said.
He’s had nine players make it to the major leagues, but he realizes there is life beyond baseball and he tries to prepare his players for it.
Brayton said he decided about four or five years ago that Pullman would be his home. He’s had offers to coach elsewhere, but he enjoys where he lives and the people he lives and works with.
At 54, he has 11 years until retirement and he plans to stay where he’s at until then, “or until they carry me out feet-first.”
He’s accomplished a lot, but he still has his goals — like building a stadium and revolutionizing the game. And there’s still an umpire or two who needs to have the rules explained to him.
