Vols make history in Omaha after more than 70 years

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) - For the Tennessee Vols baseball team, Monday was all about making history. The game against Texas A&M marked the closest the Vols had gotten to a national baseball title in 73 years when the 1951 team came up just one run short against Oklahoma.

Jason Payne’s father, Herky Payne, was on the team and almost got a shot at keeping the Vols alive more than seven decades ago.

“It still kind of upset him up until his last living days,” Jason Payne said. “Dad was on deck. It was 3-2 against Oklahoma, and there was a runner on second base with two outs, and the gentleman who went before him unfortunately struck out with a guy on second base.”

Still, though, 1951 was a good year for the Vols, all things considered. Jason Payne said while the baseball team came up short, the football team went all the way.

“It means everything to know that they won a national championship in football and were runner-up national champions in baseball,” he said. “That’s pretty remarkable.”

However, that 1951 baseball team didn’t get the recognition it deserved at the time. That would come more than four decades later.

“It was 41 years in 1992 before they got recognized,” a friend of the team, Danny Sutton, said about a decades-later reunion. ”To have this and to hold onto it and keeping it for so long and knowing a couple or three of these guys; it’s a big honor.”

The Vols ultimately won Monday night 6-5, becoming the first baseball team to bring home a national title.

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