Beginning play in 1884, the Spartans have made the NCAA Division I Baseball Championship 5 times, advancing to the College World Series once, in 1954, with a third-place finish.

[10] Dick Radatz earned first-time All Big Ten honors in 1959, going 10–1, 1.12 ERA, and was a two-time MLB All-Star with the Boston Red Sox in 7-year pro career.

[15] Rick Miller was a Sporting News First Team All-American in 1969 for Michigan State and then won a Gold Glove for the California Angels in 1978 in his 15-year MLB career as a defensive standout.

Litwiler said, “One day in 1974 while I was the coach at Michigan State, I read an article in the student paper that said ‘Don’t Speed on Campus’ and there was a photo of an MSU policeman who had just received a new radar gun.

He chose baseball and won two World Series titles (1984 with Detroit, 1988 with the Los Angeles Dodgers) and the 1988 National League MVP award in an illustrious 17-year career.

Mark Mulder would earn All Big Ten honors twice for the Spartans (1997, 1998) on his way to a professional career with two MLB All-Star appearances and a 21–8 2001 season for the Oakland Athletics which was captured in the book and film Moneyball.

Bob Malek (2002) and Jeff Holm (2011) both were named the Big Ten Conference Baseball Player of the Year, the only two Spartans honored since the award was created in 1982.

[21] Recognizing the combination of athletic and academic performance, a number of Spartan baseball players have won the prestigious Big Ten Medal of Honor, including Ty Willingham (1977), who would go on to a successful college football coaching career at Notre Dame and Stanford.

Five Spartan players (Roberts, Garvey, Yewcic, Gibson, Mulder) and two coaches (John Kobs and Danny Litwhiler), have their numbers retired in East Lansing.