No need to ask Eastern Michigan University alumnus Terry Collins what he is doing these days; he just completed his first season as the manager of the New York Mets. Despite no big league playing experience, he has come a long way to get to where he is and has a lot to teach players.
Originally from Midland, Collins, 62, grew up playing baseball and played the sport throughout high school. After his senior year, he decided to play for the Eastern Michigan University Hurons, who played in the NAIA at the time. Back then, freshman
players could not play at the varsity level in the NCAA, but such was not the case in the NAIA.
“I was recruited, and Ron Oestrike was the guy to play for,” Collins said. “I wanted to go to where I could play.”
Collins played at EMU from 1968-1971 as an infielder. During his time at EMU, the Hurons went to the NAIA national championship tournament in 1968 and again in 1970. The Hurons won over Northeastern Louisiana by a 1-0 score in the championship game in 1970.
Collins won the Golden Glove award for the best fielder in the tournament while EMU’s Oestrike was named coach of the year. Winning the national championship is what Collins said is one of his best memories.
“It was a great accomplishment,” he said. “We played a lot of teams that were much bigger than us, and it was a great thrill.”
After graduating from EMU, Collins was signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates and started playing minor league baseball in Niagara Falls. He was then traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers for the 1974 season. He played in eight more seasons, only going as far as the AAA affiliate in Albuquerque.
Collins played in 10 minor league seasons and 337 minor league games without seeing a major league call-up. His final minor league stats are a .255 batting average with 95 RBIs.
“There was no free agency back then,” he said. “There wasn’t a whole lot of movement going on and you would get a chance if someone got hurt.”
After his playing days were over, Collins then turned to coaching at the various levels of the minor leagues. His first managing job was the Lodi Dodgers of the California League in 1981. Collins became the skipper for the Vero Beach Dodgers in 1982 and managed in San Antonio the following year. He was at the helm for Albuquerque from 1984 to 1988 and then managed
for the Buffalo Bisons, the AAA affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates, from 1989 to 1991.
His first big league managerial job was with the Houston Astros in 1994, and he accepted the Anaheim Angels managing position in 1997 until 1999. He held different jobs at different major league teams from 2000-2007.
In 2007, Collins got the chance to manage in Japan for the Orix Buffaloes up until 2008. For the 2009 World Baseball Classic, Collins was the manager of Team China and led it to its first WBC tournament victory over Chinese Taipei.
Collins was hired by the New York Mets organization as the minor league field coordinator in 2010 and was named the 20th
manager of the Mets on Nov. 23.
He managed his first season with the Mets this year, guiding them to a 77-85 record, putting New York 25 games out of first in the National League East Division. Collins’ big league managing record stands at 521-519 over seven years.
He looks back on the 2011 season as a tough one but saw some young players develop.
“We lost a lot of players that went down with injuries,” he said. “But we had some young players on the team, and it was great to see them advance,”
In 1994, Collins was elected into the EMU Athletic Hall of Fame. He was the first player from the 1970 national championship team to be elected into the hall of fame and considers it a great honor.
“It was an honor to be a part of the great athletes that came through EMU,” Collins said.
