Long Beach State’s baseball program is going through a trial separation, and as usual it’s hardest on the kids, even when the kids are adults. There’s a lot of `kid’ in baseball players of any age.

The 2019 season began poorly and ended with a thud. The Dirtbags went 14-41 and Troy Buckley was fired a few weeks before the season ended after a physical pas de deux with an assistant coach.

The bigger hit came after the season. A large group of former players met with Long Beach State Athletic Director Andy Fee and beseeched him to select someone with a history in the program as the successor.

Many of those players felt the Dirtbag ethos created by head coach Dave Snow had been fading in the almost 20 years since his retirement, and that only someone familiar with the tenets of baseball under Snow could revive the program.

Fee listened, interviewed a few former players, and then hired Eric Valenzuela, the former coach at Saint Mary’s who has no history with Long Beach State.

The response was a lot of angry phone calls and emails and letters, and promises to disavow the program. and finally accusations that Fee had Valenzuela in hand before that meeting and fed him all of the anxiety over the program so he’d be prepared to say the right things and embrace Dirtbag baseball when hired.

Athletic Directors across America have dealt with situations like this the same way since before batting helmets were introduced into the game. They don’t want to be told who to hire, especially not by former players who grew up with a dim view of administrative figures. The theory that the best man for the job is someone from within the program has taken quite a few hits over the years, too, with USC football the prime example.

The upshot is that former players have broken away from the program. Instead of playing in the annual preseason golf tournament to benefit the program, they have created their own, the Inaugural 49er Baseball Alumni Reunion Golf Tournament, set for January 27 at Old Ranch, with a dinner to follow. The tourney will benefit high school programs coached by 49er alumni.

The use of “49er” may have been for legal reasons, but it does drive home a point about what the alums think about Dirtbag baseball at the moment.

Long Beach State will still hold its preseason banquet and alumni game Feb.7-8, but won’t have a golf tournament this season. It will be interesting to see how large the alumni roster will be.

Many players have expressed their dismay about the decision making process. Don Barbara, long considered the original Dirtbag from back in 1989, was not given an interview. Former player TJ Bruce and Loyola coach Jason Gill, who had longtime connections to Snow, received interviews, but they were brief.

“The bottom line is the school was not interested in us,,” said a former player who spoke on background. “They didn’t really care what we had to say and just used it to prepare the new coach to make it look good. It was disrespectful to the players.”

Players who attended the 30th anniversary of Dirtbag program at Blair Field the last weekend of the 2019 season walked away with a clear disconnect between what had been created and the current administration. It was poorly run and most players agree the Dirtbag name had just became part of the school’s marketing effort.

Mike Gallo was a key pitcher on the last Long Beach team to get to Omaha and the College World Series, in 1998, and he walks the line between his distress about the situation and his love of the school and program. Related Articles USC football adds QB Devin Brown to 2022 class

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“I was shocked when they didn’t hire a former Dirtbag,’’ he said. “The culture of what Dave Snow built has been out of whack for a while. The way they handled the situation was a slap in the face.

“But Long Beach State is in my blood. I’ll never abandon the school. I would never have had a major league career if not for what I learned as a Dirtbag. I’m going to give the athletic department the benefit of the doubt and try and stay positive.’’

It will be interesting to see how the program evolves from now. All of the add-ons to make renovate Blair came from the pockets of former players like Jered Weaver and Troy Tulowitzki, in part because of their relationship with Buckley, the last person on campus with a tie to the Snow era. (By the way, Buckley was hired as the pitching coach at Nevada, where former Dirtbag TJ Bruce is head coach.)

The handful of long-time patrons to the program have winnowed over the years and may now dry up completely.

Winning solves a lot of problems. But it’s safe to say that more people will think of the new era at Long Beach State as just an error.