The Sock 'Em, Bust 'Em Board Because that's our custom

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Two years ago, WVU and Texas played the final series at Hawley Field, and three of the four largest crowds in the venue’s history — and a total of 5,413 for the three games — saw the Mountaineers take two out of three. It was highly entertaining and at times combative. Roger Clemens was there, and I want to say the Texas catcher was ejected from the Sunday game, that after having some some to-and-fro with fans earlier in the weekend. But it was fun, and that was really the school’s introduction to this high-level baseball the Big 12 was to deliver.

Texas returns to town this weekend for a three-game series, and the six-time national champs, who are down this season, are 4-5 against WVU. These two have played three extra-innings games, two one-run games and two two-run games. Fittingly, they’re separated by just half a game in the standings, and we’ll go out on a limb and say WVU would be 9-9 and not 9-8, and thus even with Texas, if not for a snow-out in Kansas in March.

The Mountaineers, known in the past to entertain fans in odd ways, have been memorable this season. Great games, bad losses, to-the-wire finishes, splendid pitching, timely hitting, players with high utility, on and on we can go. There’s always something, but here comes something you might not often see.

Texas’s Augie Garrido, a Hall of Famer and the sport’s winningest manager, won’t be at Saturday’s game. With his squad already three games under .500 and sliding toward back-to-back seasons outside of the NCAA Tournament, which is to say with his job in question at baseball blue blood Texas, he’ll take a timeout to go to New York to receive an award.

After coaching Texas in Friday’s Big 12 series opener at West Virginia, Garrido will shuffle off to New York on Saturday as one of 91 recipients of the Ellis Island Medals of Honor, which he’s getting not only for the 1,971 games he’s won, but for the untold number of lives he’s touched along the way.

Pitching coach Skip Johnson will step in for Saturday’s game. Garrido will return to the Longhorns’ dugout for Sunday’s finale.

“There’s no choice,” Garrido said Wednesday. “It goes beyond a choice. … Put yourself in my place and think about what you’re bringing to the university, the athletic department, and the immigrants with similar backgrounds who haven’t been recognized, but might be as a result of this.”

Garrido, whose father emigrated from Spain, said he has received permission from UT officials to miss Saturday’s game for the event. Among those being honored are Padma Lakshmi, the producer of Top Chef; Mike Utley, a former NFL offensive lineman who during a 1991 game with the Detroit Lions was paralyzed from the waist down; Alice Torre, the wife of former baseball manager Joe Torre; and Carl Peterson, the former general manager of the Kansas City Chiefs. Past recipients include Hillary Clinton, Frank Sinatra, Rosa Parks, Muhammad Ali and six U.S. presidents.

Garrido got emotional on Wednesday speaking to reporters about his family, and specifically his mother, a Texan whom Garrido said learned to read through the daily newspaper that was glued to the ceiling of the family’s home for shelter from outside elements.

“It’s for all those people I don’t know,” Garrido said. “If I can get it, anyone can get it. Gotta start somewhere. Somebody’s gotta do it first, and usually that person gets criticized.”