May 18—ROCHESTER — It's been 50 years since a Mayo High School baseball team first made the state tournament.

To celebrate, players and coaches from the 1976 team gathered before the Spartans game on Saturday at Dale Massey Field. The field, located next to Mayo High School, is named after the man who coached the 1976 team and led the program for 28 years. Mayo has since gone to the state baseball tournament seven more times, most recently in 2013.

Massey, 88, was present at the reunion on Saturday and made his way out to the field to stand with his former players and be recognized before the game.

"(It's) a great honor," Massey said of celebrating his former team. "They were a good team and we had a good year, and they just did everything I wanted them to do, and yeah, I just can't say enough about the team in general. ... It was just wonderful to see them all come back."

Mike Krahn, who was a junior pitcher for the Spartans in 1976, threw out the first pitch. Krahn remains the only pitcher to ever throw a perfect game in the history of the Minnesota American Legion state tournament.

The former players exited the field, passing the current Mayo squad as they headed out for the first inning. In an impactful moment where past and present collided, the Spartans exchanged handshakes with the guys who came before them.

"I was standing next to (former second baseman) Jeff Laney, my best friend, and just standing there thinking about how fast the 50 years went, and just looking in the dugout at these young kids, and we said to each other, 'when we're done, we have to go shake their hands and just let them know how we appreciate them,'" said Bob Eaton, who was a senior pitcher on the 1976 team. "And I even told a bunch, I said, 'Listen, 50 years from now, you guys better be out here saying the same thing about how your team went to state.' So that was great, it was fun to meet those kids. Good kids."

Massey sat in a folding chair behind the fence near the home dugout, watching as the 2026 Mayo baseball team took on Mankato West. Everyone agreed it was a sunny, picture-perfect day.

"He's one of few coaches that could have managed this group of players, too, because we were live wires, no doubt about it, but somehow he figured out how to get us all together," Eaton said. "So great to see (Massey) again, too."

The road to the Spartans' first-ever state tournament berth was not an easy one.

Mayo started the season 2-4 before going 9-1 in its final 10 games of the regular season. In the Class 2A, Region 1 tournament, the Spartans went 6-1 with their lone loss coming at the hands of John Marshall, 5-4.

The tournament was a double-elimination format, just as it remains today. Mayo found redemption and took down the Rockets twice en route to the title game.

In a 12-inning marathon, the Spartans downed Hastings 2-1, sending them to state for the first time in school history. Krahn worked all 12 innings on the mound.

"The score was tied at the end of the sixth inning," Krahn said. "Coach Massey came out to take me out, and I just said, 'No way, I'm not coming out.' So I pitched all 12 innings to get us to go to state."

The Spartans were matched up with Marshall in the first round of the state tournament in Austin and faced Gary Vien, a 6-foot-9 pitcher with a full-ride to play baseball at the University of Minnesota. Marshall notched what turned out to be the game-winning run in the top of the first inning and Mayo fell 1-0, ending its memorable season 17-7 overall.

All but one player from the starting lineup was able to make it to the reunion on Saturday. It was the first time the team had been in the same place again since graduation.

"We had a great showing," Krahn said. "This is real special to all of us. Some of us haven't seen each other in 30-some years. I have a good core that we all still communicate, talk and stuff. So yeah, that's really nice."

Mark Malde, who was a junior first baseman on the 1976 team, went on to play college baseball at St. Cloud State and the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Malde and Krahn still live in Rochester and have been friends since they were three years old.

"I played a lot of ball, and if I could play one season over again, it would be this season, because of the guys I played with, the success we had, the fun we had," Malde said. "It was just really quite special."

A couple of years after Mayo's state run, Malde got a bit of revenge on Vien, who had transferred to Southwest Minnesota State University after playing for the Golden Gophers. Malde was pinch-hitting for the Huskies when they played SMSU.

"My first at bat against (Vien), I hit one off the center field scoreboard for a home run, and as I'm running around the bases, I just shook my head, and I said, 'God, I wish I would have hit that two years ago,'" Malde said.

Malde credited the team's senior leadership, which included outfielder Bill Smith, with part of the Spartans' success. Malde said Smith kept him calm and gave him confidence during a tough moment against John Marshall.

"There was a big crowd, and it was late in the game, and there were two outs, and the guy ahead of me walked, and so now I'm getting ready to hit and Bill Smith could sense I was nervous," Malde said. "And he says, 'Mark, come here.' And he put his arm around me, and he said, 'I need you to relax a little bit, take some deep breaths. ... I want you to step in and the first good pitch, I want you to hit it.' And I did that, and I hit it off the top of the fence, and two of the runs scored, and it ended up being a big hit. ...

"If I would have struck out that at-bat, maybe things are different. I went to college and played baseball, and I set five school records my junior year, and I don't know. I mean, would that have happened? ... What he did, I think, was one of the key things that helped me gain confidence to keep playing at a high level."

Current Mayo baseball coach Tom Senne reached out to Malde and a couple of other former players to make the 50th anniversary celebration happen.

"It was a great moment to have those guys at the game," Senne said. "It puts baseball into perspective. This was more than a game. It shows how high school sports can build relationships and how those last forever. Pretty special day."