From BGSU OFFICE OF MARKETING & BRAND STRATEGY
As part of its Spring 2025 Commencement exercises, Bowling Green State University will welcome former Falcons baseball player Orel Hershiser as Commencement speaker, where he will share with graduating students his story of perseverance and journey to becoming a Major League Baseball standout.
The BGSU Athletics Hall of Famer will speak at all three Commencement ceremonies on Saturday, May 3.
In recent years, Hershiser has re-engaged with BGSU, becoming a champion of the University, its baseball program and the many opportunities it offers to students.
Journey to BGSU
Though his family moved several times during childhood, making stops in Detroit and Toronto before ultimately settling in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, Hershiser played hockey and baseball in his youth, developing a particular affinity for the latter.
As a senior at Cherry Hill High School, Hershiser’s stellar season – which included striking out 15 batters in a single game – drew the interest of college programs, which led to his enrollment at BGSU.
His freshman season, however, was a trying time, as he was briefly academically ineligible before turning the course of his academic and baseball careers around.
“Looking back on it, I was scared of trying because I was scared of failure,” Hershiser said during a 2023 visit to BGSU. “I have learned to tell people for a long period of time to please tell me I’m wrong when I’m wrong because that brings knowledge. That’s how you learn.
“But when I was at Bowling Green my freshman year, I was a scared kid. I was a small fish in a big pond.”
Hershiser re-committed to his craft and broke out as a sophomore in 1979, which included a no-hitter against Kent State. The unleashed potential drew the attention of the Dodgers, who drafted him in the 17th round later that year.
Hershiser spent 1979 to 1983 in the minor leagues until the Dodgers promoted him in September of that season. When the team broke Spring Training in 1984, Hershiser had won a spot in the rotation – setting up a remarkable career in the Big Leagues.
Major success
Hershiser became one of the most accomplished pitchers of his era by qualifying for three All-Star Games, leading the National League in innings pitched three times, wins above replacement twice, earning a Golden Glove as the top-fielding pitcher and a Silver Slugger as a best hitter at his position.
But it was 1988 in which Hershiser’s life changed forever. That year, he broke Don Drysdale’s record for consecutive scoreless innings (59), won the National League Cy Young Award and ended the season by being named World Series Most Valuable Player after the Dodgers defeated the Oakland Athletics for a memorable World Series title.
“After the World Series, you start doing some pretty heady stuff – the Tonight Show, Arsenio Hall, a Mitsubishi commercial, a Johnson & Johnson shampoo commercial, go to Japan for the Major League Baseball All-star Tour – all kinds of stuff, and it was really a whirlwind,” he said. “It takes an amazing discipline to recover from all that celebration and still go back to have another great season the next year.”
After 12 seasons with the Dodgers, Hershiser helped the Cleveland Indians win the American League pennant in 1995, their first since 1954, and again in 1997.
Later in his career, he pitched for the San Francisco Giants and New York Mets before returning to L.A., accomplishing a long-held career goal of pitching at the highest level past age 40.
“When I made it to the big leagues, an old pitcher was 33, and 35 was ancient,” he said during a 2023 interview. “I was watching Carl Lewis and other Olympic athletes doing amazing things past 30, and I was just saying, ‘Why can’t we pitch past age 33 well? We should take care of ourselves like Olympic athletes do.’ I decided I wanted to pitch until I was 40, and I made it a goal.”
Falcon forward
In retirement, Hershiser has found success inside and outside of baseball, with ventures in the automotive industry and investing, among others, being an award-winning broadcaster and even qualifying for the quarterfinals of a professional poker tournament in 2008.
In recent years, he has championed causes at BGSU, proving key in the Save BGSU Baseball campaign and as a member of the BGSU Baseball Advisory Council.
Since returning to BGSU, Hershiser said the changes to campus are indicative of the momentum at the University.
“I am so impressed. If you’re in high school and you’re in Ohio or somewhere nearby – think about Bowling Green. This is a campus you need to come visit because there’s extra special stuff going on around here,” he told ESPN in 2023. “What’s going on in Bowling Green is really big. It’s a big-time place. The campus is unbelievable. Two-thirds of the buildings here were not here when I left in 1979. Everything they’ve built is complex and on the cutting edge.”
BGSU selecting Hershiser as the Commencement speaker is the recognition of his commitment to the University’s mission of being a public university for the public good.
Hershiser, now 66, said he applied the skills of lifelong learning to his career after baseball, which included placing the highest value on people.
“I would say the biggest tool in business – and the biggest tool in my business of baseball – is relationships and communication,” he said. “Your talent drops down to about the fifth priority. If you’re a good person, you communicate, you’re on time, you have manners and you follow through, you go to the head of the class.”
