Former MU Baseball Standout a Part of 2011 World Series Championship

Mercer University alumnus and former baseball standout Joe Pettini (CLA '77) earned the second championship ring of his major league coaching career on Friday evening when the St. Louis Cardinals defeated the Texas Rangers in the seventh, and deciding, game of the 2011 MLB World Series. Pettini graduated from Mercer with a bachelor’s degree in education.

In his 10^th season as manager Tony LaRussa’s bench coach for the Cardinals, Pettini was also a part of St Louis’ 2006 World Series championship team that defeated the Detroit Tigers, four games to one.

Pettini’s has, no doubt, had ample opportunity to utilize the principles of educating others he learned during his years in Macon throughout his long career of coaching at both the minor and major league levels.

Pettini started 196 consecutive games for the Bears, but was not drafted.  Instead, he was signed in 1977 by the Montreal Expos as an undrafted free agent. In 1980, he was traded to the San Francisco Giants, where he was on the major league roster for four seasons – 1980-83.

In 1984, Pettini signed a contract with the Cardinals’ class-AAA minor-league affiliate Louisville Redbirds which began what has been a long affiliation with the St. Louis organization. After his career as a player came to a close, Pettini became a coach for the Cards’ rookie-level Hamilton team in 1989. Eventually, he worked his way through the system and became the manger at Louisville for eight seasons, prior to a five-year stint (1997-2001) as the Cardinals’ minor league field coordinator.

In 2002, LaRussa tabbed Pettini as his bench coach for the big club. As bench coach, Pettini is responsible for a myriad of duties, ranging from organization of pre-game drills to in-game positioning of the infielders. The Boston Globe’s Gordon Edes in an article described the bench coach as the “manager's trusted confidant…(he) has evolved as an aide who holds many duties including being a second set of eyes and ears for his field boss.” After the epic game No. 6 of the 2011 World Series, which featured a virtual “chess match” of substitutions over the course of the extra-inning game, the value of coaching staff members like Pettini became even more evident.

With Pettini’s role in the Cardinals’ victory in 2011, it also marks the second year in a row that a former Mercer baseball player has been a part of a World Series championship team.  In 2010 former MU player - and member of Mercer’s Athletic Hall of Fame - Ed Creech was the Senior Advisor for Scouting to the World Series champion San Francisco Giants.