Every so often, North Dakota produces an athlete who makes the whole country do a double-take. Darin Erstad was one of those guys. A small-town kid from Jamestown who grew up playing every sport he could get his hands on, Erstad went on to do something no other North Dakotan has ever done — win a college football national championship and a World Series title.
Think about that for a second. National champ in football at Nebraska in 1994. World Series champ with the Anaheim Angels in 2002. Two completely different sports, two completely different levels, same guy.
The Football Years
Most people remember Erstad for baseball, but his athletic career really took off in Lincoln. He was the starting punter for the Nebraska Cornhuskers, and when they steamrolled their way to the 1994 national title, Erstad had a front-row seat. The kid from Jamestown, North Dakota, was booming punts on Saturdays in front of 75,000 fans at Memorial Stadium.
Erstad was drafted in 1992 to the MLB, but wanted to go to college where he put his career into rarified air. He punted and kicked long field goals for the Cornhuskers and walked out with a national championship ring, before starting his career in Major League Baseball.
The Baseball Breakthrough
Baseball, though, was where Erstad left his legacy. Drafted No. 1 overall by the California Angels in 1995, he carried that small-town grit all the way to the big leagues. In 2000, he led the majors with 240 hits, earned a Silver Slugger, and hit .355. Two years later, he helped deliver Anaheim’s first (and still only) World Series title.
Erstad was the guy who did the little things right — bunting, running hard, making diving catches in the outfield. He played the game with the same edge you see at a Legion game in North Dakota, only under the brightest lights in baseball.
His baseball career spanned 13 seasons with three teams. The majority of his career was played with the Angels (1996-2006), but had stops with the White Sox (2007) and Houston Astros (2008-09). His peak year was in 2000 which has been covered by baseball sickos very often. Reddit, YouTube (Shoutout Swilly), Angels blogs, and even an ESPN article about the season call to how special it was.
Future Blog Idea: Dive deep in to the 2000 season of Darin Erstad.
Angels Fans Want Him Back To Manage Team
Erstad spent time as a coach for Nebraska baseball and saw plenty of success. There are plenty of Angels fans that would love to see him manage the big league club as well. At Nebraska, Erstad went 267-193-1 as the manager from 2012-2019 including a Big Ten championship in 2017.
Erstad did interview for the Dodgers job prior to Dave Roberts getting the nod. It would be a cool callback to the 2002 World Series team to see Erstad take over the lineup card and manage the team. He is respected in the organization and by fans of the team to be a real candidate.
It’s important to remember that even though Angels fans seem to want Erstad to be the next manager, he may not want to be a manager. He stepped away from coaching at Nebraska so he could be involved in family activities, which was ultimately what led him to withdraw his name from consideration with the Dodgers in 2015. It will be interesting to see how it develops. The Angels could reach out and see where he is at, and maybe after some years away from coaching he decides to get back into the profession. Whatever he decides, we want to thank him for the memories as a player in Jamestown, Nebraska, Anaheim, Chicago, and Houston.
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