His 92-miles per hour fastball was so good, hitters could hardly see it, much less get good wood on it. His curve ball left many an opponents' knees buckling at the late break as the ball dove across the plate.

He was a strikeout artist to be sure, recording more than one K for every inning pitched throughout his career in Cuba City High School, Dodgeville American Legion and Home Talent League, and UW-Platteville.

Kendall Murray, however, is not being honored by UW-Platteville for just being the school's all-time strikeout leader. The Pioneers are naming their brand-new field after him because of the way the shaggy-haired local-boy-makes-good pitcher played the game, with a quick pitch and an even quicker smile.

The Pioneers will dedicate their field on the upper campus to the late Kendall Murray on March 31 before the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference doubleheader against UW-Stevens Point. Kendall's parents, Pat and Nancy, will throw out the first pitch before the noon start.

"It's really an honor," Nancy said. "There was something special about Kendall. I can't put my finger on it, and I know I'm his mother, but he was always a special person."

Kendall Murray's life was cut way too short when he was killed in a jeep crash on June 8, 1975, just a few weeks after completing his senior season in the orange and blue. The loss staggered all of southwest Wisconsin.

"Everybody liked him," his mother said. "When he went away to college, he made so many friends. They just loved him. My goodness the day he was killed–and remember everybody had gone back (to their hometowns)–people started coming here at two o'clock in the morning. It just seemed to escalate with the memorials and tributes. It's really hard to understand. There have been a lot of kids killed and were probably just as good of kids, but I don't know. There was just something about him."

On the field, there was certainly something about him. He set the Pioneer career record with 171 strikeouts, despite the fact the team only played an average of 19 games per season during 1972 through 1975.

"He was a standout pitcher in high school and he did a good job for us," said then-Pioneer Coach Dale Fatzinger, whose recruiting letter in 1971 is still kept by the Murray family in their Cuba City home. "He certainly helped our pitching staff. I saw a lot of good pitchers during my tenure, and he was one of the best. Plus he was a real nice kid."

The Murrays, who used vacation days to travel to all of Kendall's away games, still recall his epic battles and victories over UW-La Crosse and Jerry Augustine, who went on to win 55 games for the Milwaukee Brewers.

Murray attracted a crowd whenever he pitched, including most of his Lambda Sigma Pi fraternity.

"People just liked to be around him," said Tom Evans, a fraternity brother. "He never took himself or life too seriously. He was one of those rare people who could be serious and focused during the game but could laugh and smile at the drop of a hat. He could give up a home run and turn around and say, 'boy that got out of here in a hurry' then turn around and be totally focused. That's a rarity in an athlete."

Kendall Murray majored in safety education and minored in coaching. The day of the accident, he received his confirmation to student teach in Mineral Point, where he would have coached as well. Murray had worked with the Cuba City youth baseball program, and was anxious to begin coaching.

"He loved working with kids, teaching baseball," his father, Pat, said. “He just loved baseball. I see a lot of kids dedicated to baseball, but I've never seen anyone as dedicated as Kendall."

Dedications to Kendall Murray are numerous throughout the area. Scoreboards bear his name in Cuba City, as do scholarships in both Cuba City and Dodgeville. The Pioneers played 29 years on the original Kendall Murray Field, which closed in 2005.

The sparkling new Kendall Murray Field will be the first baseball-only complex for UW-Platteville. The field, which drops four feet from ground level to give it a stadium feel, features dimensions of 330 feet down the lines, 375 to the power alleys and 400 feet to center. A blue wind screen in the outfield is topped by orange fence caps, giving the facility a striking appearance in the Pioneers' school colors.

It is a fitting place for the resurgent baseball program to play, and a fitting reminder of one of the finest Pioneers ever.

"There's not a day that goes by that I don't think of Kendall," Nancy said.