Furseth, Get The Bats!

"Furseth, get the bats!," growled the University of Wisconsin baseball coach at his sophomore outfielder who had sat on the bench for the duration of a pre-season game in 1949. Paul Furseth had either broken a team rule or failed to execute a play properly in an earlier game; his children who recently met with me to recall his playing days are not quite sure.

Bat-hauling duty did not last long for the farmboy from rural Edgerton, 20 miles from the university campus. As a junior, Paul Furseth started as an outfielder for Wisconsin's 1950 co-Big Ten champions and the only UW team to qualify for the College World Series, played at Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha, Nebraska for the first time that season. In 1951, Furseth was Wisconsin's Most Valuable Player, hitting .309 with nine home runs and 28 runs runs batted in during a 23-game season in which the Badgers compiled a 14-8-1 record. Furseth also whacked seven doubles and two triples. Of his 28 hits, 18 went for extra bases.

Not bad for somebody who hit corn cobs with a baseball bat growing up on a family farm in a community without a high school baseball team. Furseth played local baseball for the Edgerton Merchants, who won the southern division championship of the Central Wisconsin League in 1944. While serving a two-year hitch in the U.S. Navy in 1945-46, Furseth played baseball in Guam. In January 1946, Chicago Cubs scout Jack Sheehan wrote Furseth about the possibility of a professional tryout after he returned home from the service. When nothing came of the offer, Furseth enrolled at the University of Wisconsin in the fall of 1947. He continued to develop as a player during his three-year varsity career and was a solid contributor to Coach Arthur ("Dynie") Mansfield's program. "A good ballplayer, a good teammate, a good sense of humor," recalls Robert "Red" Wilson, who preceded Furseth as Wisconsin's MVP in 1950 and played 10 years in the majors with the Chicago White Sox, Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Indians. Former Wisconsin pitcher Ron Unke, an MVP himself in 1953, rmembers Furseth making some key catches in Unke's shutout of Illinois in May 1951. "He could hit the long one, too," Unke recalls.

Furseth's MVP performance got the attention of White Sox scouts who signed him to a Class B minor-league contract with Waterloo of the Three-I (Illinois-Iowa-Indiana) League after the college season ended. In 21 games, Furseth collected 13 hits including five doubles and a home run. While the power was there, the average was not. A .217 log meant a long climb to the big top so Furseth decided to return to his home community and raise a family of seven children, working for local employers including the post office until retirement.

Sadly, Paul G. "Smiley" Furseth died of pancreatic cancer in September 2010 at the age of 83. He had been playing golf just six weeks earlier. Posthomously, Furseth is being inducted into the Edgerton Athletic Hall of Fame this spring. Paul Furseth loved his family, community and the game of baseball. An avid St. Louis Cardinal fan, Furseth also enjoyed talking about his UW experiences and his teammates. Above all, Paul Furseth enjoyed life. That should bring a smile to anyone's face. Congratulations, Furseth! Someone else will get the bats.

Sources for the above article include interviews with the Furseth children in October 2010, scrapbook materials, and Wisconsin State Journal articles from 1950 and 1951.