Billy Hall took grass-roots approach to Shocker stardom (+video)

There is no consensus, 25 years later, on the content of the shirt Bill Hall wore in support of his son Billy Hall and Wichita State’s baseball team in 1991.

Billy Hall, an senior infielder that season for the Shockers, recalls, “From pinch-runner to All-American.” Coach Gene Stephenson is sure “pinch-runner” is actually “bench warmer,” but it could have been “walk-on” and it might have been a sign, not a shirt.

All of those versions accurately describe Billy Hall’s plight as an unlikely star for the Shockers. Hall barely played in 1990 after transferring from Butler Community College. But he became a Collegiate Baseball magazine All-American the following season, when WSU advanced to the national championship game, thanks to a .364 batting average and 59 stolen bases.

Hall, who played 15 professional seasons and reached Triple-A for four organizations, was inducted into the Kansas Baseball Hall of Fame during a Saturday afternoon ceremony at the Drury Plaza Broadview Hotel.

Also inducted were former WSU and major-league pitcher Nate Robertson, part-owner of the Wingnuts; former WSU coach Gene Stephenson; former Barton Community College coach Mike Warren; Kansas City Royals general manager Dayton Moore and the 1962-65 Rapid Transit Dreamliners, which won three National Baseball Congress World Series championships during those years.

“It was a shock to me to walk up to the stadium and for everybody to ask, ‘Have you seen it?’ ” Hall said. “And I’m like, ‘What are you guys talking about?’ Then to actually see the shirt that said, ‘From a pinch-runner to a first-team All-American,’ actually puts it into perspective to see what I actually did, not knowing when you’re in the thick of things.”

Hall made just as much of an impression as the shirt did, becoming one of WSU’s most popular players – and one of its most remembered – from a team that included Darren Dreifort, Doug Mirabelli, Kennie Steenstra, Jamie Bluma and Tyler Green.

Hall, who played at Northwest and is a baseball instructor in Wichita, earned a tryout with the Shockers in part because his dad coached Stephenson’s son, Jay. Hall made the 1990 team as a walk-on before becoming a star the following year.

“Billy was so special to us,” Stephenson said. “…Nobody worked harder at his trade. Nobody gave more effort at trying to improve his skills where he was deficient. It was phenomenal.”

Hall recalled the chain-link fence at WSU’s field during the 1980s, when Hall frequently and inconspicuously attended Shockers practices. When he earned a tryout for Stephenson in 1990, the year after WSU won the national championship, Hall said his family treated him as if he’d won the lottery.

“I didn’t think anything of it at the time,” Hall said. “I had hurt myself at Butler so I didn’t know what I was going to do after that. But as soon as I walked in there, it was like, that’s the door that’s opening that I need.”

Hall turned that opening into a long career that spanned multiple continents and accomplishments that would have looked good on a shirt – or a sign. He credits his dad for most of them, and for the love of the game he tries to instill within the young players he teaches.

“It’s fun, because he did it for me,” Hall said. “Just to have the opportunity to give to them some of the things that we didn’t have or we weren’t able to have, is just a blessing.”

This story was originally published February 6, 2016 at 4:55 PM with the headline "Billy Hall took grass-roots approach to Shocker stardom (+video)."