NCAA Regional (1964) 4 Yankee Conference (1964 – outright; 1960, 1966, 1970 – shared) 8 Maine State Series (1967, 1968, 1970, 1971, 1974 – outright; 1960, 1966, 1969 – shared)
Awards
1964 NCAA Division I National Coach of the Year Maine Sports Hall of Fame[1]
John Butterfield (August 5, 1929 – November 16, 1979) was an American college baseball coach and professional baseball executive. Butterfield grew up in Westborough, Massachusetts and played college baseball for Maine in the early 1950s and later was the head coach at Maine and South Florida. In the late 1970s, he became an executive in the New York Yankees organization before he died in a car crash in November 1979.[2][3][4]
Coaching career
Maine
Butterfield's coaching career began at Maine in 1956, when he assisted head coach Walter Anderson and coached the school's junior varsity team. For the 1957 season, Butterfield was named the head coach. He held the position from 1957–1974 and compiled an overall record of 240-169-2.[2]
Maine's best season under Butterfield was 1964, when the team went 21-8 and won the Yankee Conference outright to qualify for the program's first NCAA tournament. In the best-of-three District 1 Regional held in Boston, Maine swept Northeastern in two games to advance to the College World Series. There, Maine won its opening game against Seton Hall, 5-1, before dropping its second to Minnesota, 12-0. In the loser's bracket, the Black Bears defeated Arizona State and USC but were eliminated by Missouri and finished third.[2] Butterfield was named NCAA Coach of the Year, and Joe Ferris was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player.[5]
In Butterfield's 17 seasons at Maine, the team won eight Maine State Series (a competition between Maine, Bowdoin, Colby, and Bates) and shared three other Yankee Conference titles, but did not qualify for another NCAA tournament.[2]
Following the 1974 season, Butterfield left Maine to become the head coach at South Florida (USF), in part due to tension with Maine's administration over the program's funding. He coached at USF for two seasons (1975–1976) and had an overall record of 61-24-1. At USF, future Toronto Blue Jays manager Carlos Tosca was Butterfield's equipment manager.[3][9][10][11]
Head coaching record
Below is a table of Butterfield's yearly records as a collegiate head baseball coach.[2][9]
National champion
Postseason invitational champion
Conference regular season champion
Conference regular season and conference tournament champion
Division regular season champion
Division regular season and conference tournament champion
Conference tournament champion
Professional baseball
In 1976, Butterfield left USF at the request of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner to become a scout for New York. The following year, he was named the organization's Director of Player Development and Scouting, a position he served in for the next three seasons.[3][12][13]
Death
Early on November 16, 1979, Butterfield was killed in a car crash in Paramus, New Jersey. His car crashed into a street sweeper stopped on the side of road. Steinbrenner said of his death: "The magnitude of our loss cannot be expressed in words. He was the epitome of what you'd look for in a teacher of young men."[3][4]
Following Butterfield's death in 1979, two awards were named for him. At Maine, the Jack Butterfield Memorial Scholarship is given to baseball players who "have demonstrated academic proficiency, athletic leadership and the high ideals and standards" of Butterfield. Past recipients include Major Leaguers Mike Bordick, Mark Sweeney, Bill Swift, and Larry Thomas.[18] Also, the New England Intercollegiate Baseball Association (NEIBA) gives the Jack Butterfield Award to a coach who exhibits "integrity and dedication to the game." Past recipients include Maine's John Winkin, Vermont's Bill Currier, and Northeastern's Neil McPhee.[19][20][21]
^Osborne, Owen (February 11, 1977). "Jack Butterfield Gets Top Yankee Job". Bangor Daily News. Bangor, ME, USA. p. 20. Archived from the original on March 7, 2017. Retrieved June 22, 2014.
^Roberts, Robin; Rogers III, Paul C. (2003). My Life in Baseball. Chicago: Triumph. ISBN9781617494284. Jack Butterfield had been the South Florida baseball coach, but George Steinbrenner had offered him a job with the Yankees organization in September.
^Appel, Marty (2012). Pinstripe Empire: The New York Yankees from Before the Babe to After the Boss (1st ed.). New York: Bloomsbury USA. p. 443. ISBN9781608194926.