Video: Ole Miss Baseball Team Celebrates Game-Winning Play by Gatlin

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OXFORD, Miss. (WCBI) — Today, the Ole Miss baseball team is celebrating a play from a guy who doesn’t usually grab headlines.

A Tupelo native who doesn’t usually get too many at-bats came through with the game-winning hit yesterday, just days after losing a relative.

Fifth-year senior John Gatlin is still smiling today. He’s a guy who has gone through three surgeries, and had just 29 at-bats entering the game. He’s an unlikely hero, but when it matter most, he delivered.

“Yeah, that’s definitely the biggest moment in my career,” Gatlin said.

The pitch wasn’t even close to being a strikeout, but Gatlin made contact and gave Ole Miss its first win in the College World Series since 1969. Gatlin played at Itawamba Community College and Tupelo High School, getting texts from many old friends and coaches after the game.

“It was blowing up,” Gatlin said. “I still haven’t even gone through most of it.”

But the conversation he was most looking forward to was the phone call back home.

“My dad answered the phone. He was crying, he couldn’t talk,” Gatlin said. “He said my mom had been crying and all my brothers were there crying. It was really special.”

Made even more special by the fact that Gatlin’s grandmother had passed away two days earlier. He said he was thinking of her.

“Coach Godwin came up to me and said, ‘I’m so sorry. Do you need to go home?’ I told him, ‘That’s ridiculous. She’d kill me if I went home,'” Gatlin said.

Every Ole Miss player we spoke to said they couldn’t be happier for Gatlin, and that kind of moment couldn’t have happened to a better guy. The rebels next face TCU Thursday at 7 p.m.