Photos courtesy of VT Athletics – Brad Bauder’s future father in-law, Dick Wilhelm, walked around the fence and collected each of the home run balls Bauder hit in 2002.
Virginia Tech center field Brad Bauder once had an afternoon like none other in the history of Hokie baseball.
On Sunday, April 21, 2002, Bauder, a junior, put together a performance that still lets him dominate Tech’s single-game records stats. When the Hokies wrapped up a 35-4 crushing of Georgetown, Bauder had the school single-game records for hits, runs, home runs, runs batted in and total bases.
Bauder went into the game batting .290, with six home runs and 29 RBI and was in a 3-for-22 slump. Then-head coach Chuck Hartman slid Bauder down to the No. 7 spot in the batting order as Tech went for the three-game sweep against the Hoyas.
Bauder responded with a Virginia Tech record 8-for-8 effort, with seven runs scored, four home runs, 14 RBI and 23 total bases. He also hit for the cycle in Tech’s 35-4 victory.
That performance still ranks as the second-best day ever for a Division I baseball player. Ahead of him is Florida State’s Marshall McDougall’s, who May 9, 1999, hit six home runs with 16 runs batted in and 25 total bases.
"I remember [McDougall],“ Bauder told Baseball America’s John Manuel at the time. “That was my senior year in high school, and he was on SportsCenter. That was amazing to watch. I had nothing like that in my mind.
"I hit three [home runs] in a game earlier this year against Western Michigan, but I didn’t realize it until the third one. A couple of guys in the dugout kept telling me how I was doing, but I didn’t want to know about it and put pressure on myself.
"Looking back at this almost 20 years ago, I won’t say that I didn’t know what was going on because every baseball player would be lying to you if they said they didn’t know what their stats were for a day," Bauder said. "It’s such a statistical game. Overall, I don’t think I even had a clue, but I do remember going up for my last at-bat and someone telling me, "Dude, you’re 7-for-7, and if you hit a grand slam here, you’d do this.’ So maybe I kind of knew it, but I don’t think I believed it at the time.
"It’s funny. I’ve got a couple of buddies that I hang out with quite a bit and every once and a while they’ll bring it up. They weren’t at Tech with me, just friends from around here. So it does come up a little, but I can honestly say that I don’t think about it a lot unless it’s brought to my attention. But when I do start to reflect on it, sometimes I still can’t believe the day we had as a team, along with what I was able to do.
"I started following more college baseball probably right before Marshall McDougall had that day against Maryland for Florida State. I do think that, since the bats changed after I left, I do think that’s helped me out, and no one will ever get close to those numbers anymore,” Bauder said. “My first year in college, they went through a bat change, too – they dropped down to a smaller barrel – but nothing like what they’ve experienced since."
After graduating from Tech in 2003, Bauder played minor league baseball for a couple of seasons before entering his current profession in the educational system. He has worked with the Loudoun County Public Schools since 2005. He started out as a physical education teacher and coached baseball, basketball and golf. He moved to Freedom High School in 2016 to be the school’s assistant athletic director and has been the school’s AD the past three years.
Bauder lives in Round Hill, Va., (in Loudoun County) with his wife, Courtney. They have an 8-year old daughter, Teagan, and twins, Tyler and Tatum, who are 5.
"I graduated with a teaching degree from Tech, and when I moved back home, I figured why not put it to use," Bauder said. "I played in Loudoun County, so I did have a lot of support in getting a job, and I also coached. I started out at Freedom, where I am now, for one year and then moved over to Loudon Valley High School, where I coached for my first high school baseball coach, Wayne Todd, so I got to coachwith him in his last season.
On that momentous April afternoon against Georgetown, Bauder had eight hits, four home runs, 14 runs-batted in, seven runs scored and 23 total bases, all Hokie single-game records.
"From there. I went to Woodgrove High School and was their first head baseball coach, and I was there for four years. Then life happened, and I had a daughter, and then two years later had twins, a daughter and a son. It wasn’t the smoothest first year; we had some medical issues that we dealt with, so I had to step away from head coaching. I didn’t think I could do the job. I expect a lot from the kids, and I wasn’t able to do the same for them, so family came first.
"I coached golf and basketball in those times as well. Then I went the administrative route and got the assistant AD’s job at Freedom and did that for one year, and then kind of fell into the AD role. The athletic director left and the opportunity arose, and I never thought I’d be there already. It is what it is, and we’re surviving. We work hard and try to do things the right way, just like I did when I was a player."
In his first at-bat that afternoon, Bauder tripled and scored the fifth run of a five-run first inniung that got the Hokies rolling in the game. He followed that up with a three-run home run in the second inning in his second at-bat, one that gave Tech a commanding 9-1 lead.
"The triple is the funny one because I can’t say I was the hottest hitter going into the weekend," he said. "I did feel like I was hitting the ball well, but with baseball, you can hit well, but it doesn’t mean there’s not a guy standing right there to catch it. I remember I was moved back in the lineup a little bit, and to be honest, I wasn’t too upset with that because I thought I’d see a more fastballs.
"So with the triple, I kind of hit a little blooper that went over the shortstop’s head and into short left-center field and both the left fielder and center fielder came in on it. I’m not sure if someone dove, or they both just looked at each other, but the ball hit and scooted all the way to the fence.
"I was like ‘Oh my gosh, I got one to fall’ and ran as fast as I could and ended up at third. It was a little bit of a relief that I got that hit and maybe that would start me going. It definitely made me a little more relaxed at the plate to catch a break in the first."
Bauder blasted another three-run home run in the third, hit an RBI double and scored in the fourth and homered again in the fifth, a two-run shot that made it 24-1. In the sixth, Bauder completed the cycle with an RBI single.
"I remember the single; I just beat it out," Bauder said. "It was a hard ball down the line, and the third baseman dove and it took him into foul territory. I thought ‘Oh, he got me.’ And I just got down the line and beat the throw, and I remember that being for the cycle.
"Another story from that day,” Bauder said. “I think it was after the home run in the third. I had a friend that I played up in Alaska with over the summer, and he was the first baseman for Georgetown. I remember passing him, and he’s just like ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ And I probably looked at that one a little longer than maybe a hitter should, and one of my best friends who hit behind me that day, Spencer Harris, I think he got hit by the pitcher."
In the eighth, Bauder singled to lead off the inning and would come to the plate again in the frame with two outs and the bases loaded, having already gone 7-for-7, with three homers and 10 RBI. He hit the 1-0 fastball over the center field wall, and with it wrote his name into the record books.
"I remember someone joking with me before I went up to the plate (in the eighth), ‘Go and hit another one,’" Bauder said. "And I thought maybe I should just go try and hit another one. I did have a lot of success hitting home runs later in my career at Tech, and then I hit some in pro ball, but I wouldn’t consider myself a power hitter.
“I thought, if I get a good pitch herewith the way the ball was jumping off my bat, I had a chance, and sure enough it worked out."
Bauder did not get an at-bat in the seventh and would not come to the plate in the ninth either. The final Tech out was made by the No. 5 batter. That robbed him of a chance to match the NCAA record for hits in a game. Only one player in Division I baseball history has ever gone 9-for-9 in a game: Air Force’s John McBroom versus Colorado College on May 10, 1967, while just two others have recorded eight hits in eight at-bats (Henry Rochelle, Campbell, March 30, 1985; and Cory Smith, New Mexico, May 3, 1997).
"On the way home that day from Georgetown, we stopped at George Mason to shower," Bauder said. "I remember getting on the bus, and our sports information director back then, Dave Smith, comes and tells me, ‘You have phone calls you’ve got to take.’ It was Baseball America, The Washington Post, USA Today, and I was told that I did get a blurb on SportsCenter that night, but I’ve never seen it to this day. And I know that Sports Illustrated picked it up, too, and my mom kept track of all that stuff..
"Then I remember the next game we played. It was against East Tennessee State at the minor league park in Johnson City, and I remember news cameras following me around during warmups. I was the last guy in our lineup that game to get a hit, so that’s baseball."
Entering the 2020 season (according to the NCAA record book), seven players have posted perfect 7-for-7 games since Bauder’s effort, but not one reached eight. Only McDougall and Rochelle (5) have hit more than four home runs in a game, and no Division I baseball player has totaled 20 bases or more or had more than 11 RBI in a single game either. So Bauder is still second all time in the NCAA in hits, total bases and RBI in a game and is tied for third in runs and home runs.
