NOTE — This is part of a series of stories profiling the 12-person Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame Class of 2023, who will be inducted to culminate three days of festivities in Natchitoches July 27-29. For tickets and more information, visit LaSportsHall.com or call 318-238-4255.
By JOE MACALUSO, Written for the LSWA
It’s late summer 1988, and the latest crop of freshmen were stepping onto the LSU campus. A handful among them had elected to spend most of their next few years inside Alex Box Stadium.
Among them was a tallish, thin, blond-headed, wide-eyed kid from Kentucky, a youngster who, when he wore black-rimmed glasses, looked more like he was destined to become a professor than most anything else, and certainly not a record-setting pitcher on a record-setting team.
Paul Byrd, 6-foot-1, 170 pounds, Louisville, Kentucky, throws right, St. Xavier High School.
That was the most anybody knew, except soon-to-be-legendary LSU coach Skip Bertman knew more, something his teammates found out long before Byrd’s first pitch in the 1989 season.
Paul Byrd was intelligent, more cerebral than most baseball players – and talented.
“He was super smart,” Bertman said. “He had a good fastball, and a wonderful breaking ball, not one I taught him, a breaking ball he brought with him. Paul was one of the best competitors we’ve ever put on the mound.”
After a strong freshman season for a College World Series team, Byrd stepped up his role – 10 starts among 21 appearances – and established a pattern for what would be a record-setting 1990 season — one, Bertman said, was one of the most significant in LSU baseball history.
As foreign as it is in today’s game, Byrd was asked to be a starter and reliever in 1990, a season when he went 17-6, and earned an invitation to the USA Training Camp.
His catcher as a freshman, current Ole Miss coach Mike Bianco, understood that record’s significance, especially now that he’s a long-tenured, College World Series-winning head coach.
“When Paul won 17 games, he answered all the questions,” Bianco said. “Winning 17 games in college baseball season is unheard of, and it’s a record never to be broken.
“Paul had several relief appearances as well as starts, and kids just don’t do that nowadays. That was the beginning of the legend of what became Paul Byrd.”
While his 19 starts that season topped the team, it was the 10 relief appearances that verified Bianco’s “legend” statement. In nearly 28 relief innings, Byrd gave up 19 hits (all singles), allowed 1 earned run with 34 strikeouts and 9 walks.
There was more, like those legendary, two one-run duels with Southern Cal in the 1990 NCAA Regional at Alex Box Stadium, wins that launched a second-straight trip to Omaha and the CWS.
A year later, Byrd and the Tigers made the third in a row the charm. Byrd’s 4-3 win over Oklahoma got LSU to the NCAA South Region finals, and his start in a 19-8 win over Florida shot his team into the winner-take-all, one-game showdown in what turned out to be a 6-3 victory over Wichita State that gave LSU its first national baseball championship.
So, for a kid who was a Babe Ruth World Series MVP; pitched and played two other positions in high school; was the 1987 U.S. Baseball Federation Amateur Junior Player of the Year; an All-Academic SEC star; had a 1-0 record for Team USA and a spot on the 1990 Bronze Medal Goodwill Games team; and College World Series champion, it was time to turn the page.
In his wake were 31 wins against 11 losses, 7 complete games, 2 saves and 2 shutouts in LSU’s three-seasons’ 164-54 record.
That CWS title spurred Byrd into a 14-year big-league career, one that ended Oct. 3, 2009 with a three-inning, 3-hit performance for Cleveland just days shy of his 39th birthday. By then, he had been named to the 1999 National League All-Star team, had led the American League in complete games (2002) and was that league’s shutouts leader in 2007.
He had survived a scare with shoulder and arm injuries in 2000 and 2003, and had pitched for 19 different teams in the majors and minors.
“I watched him reinvent himself,” said 1989 LSU teammate and Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame pitcher Ben McDonald. “He struggled at times like a lot of other guys did, but he came up with a different wind-up, an old-school delivery with a lot of deception.
“That takes a lot of talent to change what you know about the game and how to pitch, lots of talent,” McDonald continued. “When you look back on Paul’s career, 109 wins is a lot, and when the average big leaguer plays three years, his 14 years means Paul had a great career.”
Paul Byrd was more.
His baseball-playing peers voted him the “Nicest Guy in Baseball” and baseball writers honored him with the “Steve Olin Tim Crews Good Guy” Award, all a carryover from what his former LSU teammates knew about him.
Much more: Byrd won three Emmys (his latest coming earlier this year with Bally Sports) for his on-air Fox Sports work as a broadcaster, and added a 2021 Emmy for being the “Most Outstanding On Air Personality.”
And, more: his book “Free Byrd: The Power of a Liberated Life,” made him a best-selling author, and went hand-in-hand with founding Byrdhouse Ministries.
Byrd’s devotion to family became evident earlier this year when he decided to take the year off from broadcasting Atlanta Braves games: his wife, Kym, was fighting for her life.
His statement to Braves fans: “…thanks for all the love and questions as to why I won’t be back this year. Almost lost my wife Kym to a medical issue this offseason. So grateful to say that she is on the road to recovery and getting better each day.”
While he and his wife haven’t strayed far from his Georgia home in the last months, Kym Byrd said she is ready to make the trip to Natchitoches for the induction ceremonies.
“Today, and just because Coach Bertman wanted me at LSU, it lives with me now. I found my faith at LSU, walked away with a girl from New Orleans and fundamentally changed my life with our two sons and Kym, and made lifelong friends.
“I love those guys, love the people at LSU. We care about each other, and I have brothers who’ll be close forever,” Byrd said. “Kym and I are deeply touched, and it shows the magnitude of what the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame means to me and my family.”