Pennsylvania State University Baseball Players Who Made it to the Major Leagues

Baseball Almanac is pleased to present a comprehensive chart of every Pennsylvania State University alumni who played baseball at the Pennsylvania State University AND made it to the Major League level.

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"Mr. Ward was one of the few men in baseball who started at the bottom and later became captain, manager and president of major league baseball clubs." - The New York Herald Tribune

Agricultural College of Pennsylvania
"Nittany Lions"

Major League Baseball Player Alumni

1. John Ward 1875 - 1875 07-15-1878

Pennsylvania State College
"Nittany Lions"

Major League Baseball Player Alumni

2. Mark Baldwin 1882 - 1882 05-02-1887
3. Robert Gibson 1888 - 1889 06-04-1890
4. Bill Stuart 1893 - 1895 08-15-1895
5. Charlie Atherton 1893 - 1895 05-30-1899
6. Bud Sharpe 1900 - 1903 04-14-1905
7. Irish McIlveen 1903 - 1906 07-10-1906
8. Bob Coulson 1907 - 1908 08-04-1908
9. Birdie Cree 1905 - 1908 09-17-1908
10. Ed Klepfer 1909 - 1911 07-04-1911
11. George Hesselbacher 1914 - 1915 06-29-1916
12. Hinkey Haines 1921 - 1922 04-20-1923
13. John Jones 1920 - 1923 09-26-1923
14. Pip Koehler 1921 - 1923 04-22-1925
15. Myles Thomas 1920 - 1921 04-18-1926
16. Phil Page 1925 - 1927 09-18-1928
17. Danny Musser 1930 - 1931 09-18-1932
18. Russ Van Atta 1927 - 1928 04-25-1933
19. Alan Strange 1925 - 1930 04-17-1934
20. Bill Ford 1936 - 1936 09-27-1936
21. Joe Tepsic 1945 - 1946 07-12-1946

Pennsylvania State University
"Nittany Lions"

Major League Baseball Player Alumni

22. Cal Emery 1957 - 1958 07-15-1963
23. Tom Lawless 1976 - 1977 07-15-1982
24. Jim Farr 1975 - 1978 09-07-1982
25. Joel Johnston 1986 - 1987 09-05-1991
26. Nate Bump 1995 - 1998 06-28-2003
27. David Aardsma (Rice) 2001 - 2001 04-06-2004
Penn State University MLB Players
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baseball almanac fast facts

The Pennsylvania State University baseball program started in 1875 and John Ward was their first player to make it to the Major League level.

The Nittany Lions have a long & outstanding baseball history that started well over a hundred years ago. The team website has a detailed history that includes a great story about their first player to break into the big leagues:

The Legend of Monte Ward

"In the spring of 1875, Old Main on the Penn State campus looked down on a strange sight. On the front lawn a small crowd was gathering in a semi-circle. In the center were three stakes driven in a straight line. And there was a stocky, light-haired youth with a baseball in his hand.

"The youth stationed himself at one end of the row of stakes and placed a companion at the other. He poised himself a moment, then threw the baseball. It started on the right side of the first stake, passed to the left of the second and curved back to the right of the third before the companion caught it.

"The crowd pressed closer. Professor William A. Buckhout leaned forward. The youth repeated the feat. History does not record whether the crowd was convinced, but it does say that John Montgomery Ward was one of the first curve-ball pitchers in baseball history."

Those words were taken out of a 1954 story in the Centre Democrat about Ward. All Nittany Lion fans have heard of Greg Vogel, Nate Bump and Michael Campo.

Those three, arguably, are three of the best players to ever play in Happy Valley.

But the most heralded player to wear the blue and white (black and pink at the time) was John Montgomery Ward, who went by the name "Monte".

The story of Ward has been visited and revisited many times, but it never gets old and it's always enjoyable to hear.

The gifted student and athlete was a native of near bye Bellefonte, Pa. He was born March 3, 1860 and enrolled at Penn State College at the ripe age of 13. He attended Penn State for several years and is generally given credit for helping found the very first Nittany Lion baseball team in 1875. However, the young pioneer never graduated from Penn State because he was kicked out of school for stealing chickens after numerous warnings from the administration. He received his Bachelor’s and law degrees from Columbia University in 1887.

His one year on the Penn State squad presented Ward with opportunities that led him into the 1964 class of the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame.

Source: 2011 Penn State Baseball Media Guide.

Did you know that there are twenty-seven former Pennsylvania State University players who made it to the show? Too easy? Did you know there were also seven additional alumni (Cliff Heathcote, Buddy Dear, Dick Smith, Milt Graff, Jim Britton, Mike Scioscia, and D.J. Dozier) who did not play baseball at Pennsylvania State, but went on to become big leaguers? Send updates to Baseball Almanac.