The Marshall Thundering Herd baseball team represents the Marshall University

Marshall University

Marshall University is a coeducational public research university in Huntington, West Virginia, United States founded in 1837, and named after John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the United States....

 in NCAA Division I college baseball

College baseball

College baseball is baseball that is played on the intercollegiate level at institutions of higher education. Compared to football and basketball, college competition in the United States plays a less significant contribution to cultivating professional players, as the minor leagues primarily...

 and competes in Conference USA

Conference USA

Conference USA, officially abbreviated C-USA, is a college athletic conference whose member institutions are located within the Southern United States. The conference participates in the NCAA's Division I in all sports...

. The current head coach of the Herd is Jeff Waggoner. Marshall currently plays their conference home games off-campus in Charleston, West Virginia

Charleston, West Virginia

Charleston is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of West Virginia. It is located at the confluence of the Elk and Kanawha Rivers in Kanawha County. As of the 2010 census, it has a population of 51,400, and its metropolitan area 304,214. It is the county seat of Kanawha County.Early...

 at Appalachian Power Park

Appalachian Power Park

Appalachian Power Park is the current home field for the West Virginia Power, a minor league baseball team in the South Atlantic League which are a Class A affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates. It also serves as one of two home fields for the baseball programs of both Marshall University and the...

.

Home venues

• Kennedy Center Field
  Kennedy Center Field
  Kennedy Center Field is a community baseball field at the Kennedy Center YMCA recreation camp on West Virginia Route 2 about 4 miles north of Huntington, West Virginia. The field is used for practice and non-conference games by the Marshall University baseball team. The field is unlighted, has...
  
   (Non-conference games)
• Appalachian Power Park
  Appalachian Power Park
  Appalachian Power Park is the current home field for the West Virginia Power, a minor league baseball team in the South Atlantic League which are a Class A affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates. It also serves as one of two home fields for the baseball programs of both Marshall University and the...
  
   (Conference USA games)

History

Marshall baseball, who won the Southern Conference

Southern Conference

The Southern Conference is a Division I college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association . Southern Conference football teams compete in the Football Championship Subdivision . Member institutions are located in the states of Alabama, Georgia, North...

 in 1978 and 1981 and advanced to the NCAA Tournament in 1973 and 1978, finished as runner-up in the 2008 C-USA Baseball Tournament, falling in the finals to Houston, 3–2, but winning a MU record 30 games without a home field to use in Huntington for the entire season (Marshall has played C-USA games at Charleston's Appalachian Power Park since joining the league in 2006). For the first time since 1994, MU had players drafted in the June 5–6 Major League Baseball Draft with a school-record three being selected, plus one recruit in 2008. Steve Blevins, who tied the single-season wins mark with a 9–3 mark, signed with the Minnesota Twins

Minnesota Twins

The Minnesota Twins are a professional baseball team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They play in the Central Division of Major League Baseball's American League. The team is named after the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis and St. Paul. They played in Metropolitan Stadium from 1961 to 1981 and the...

 on June 11, while Nate Lape was drafted by the Colorado Rockies

Colorado Rockies

The Colorado Rockies are a Major League Baseball team based in Denver, Colorado. Established in 1991, they started play in 1993 and are in the West Division of the National League. The team is named after the Rocky Mountains...

 and Tommy Johnson by the Seattle Mariners

Seattle Mariners

The Seattle Mariners are a professional baseball team based in Seattle, Washington. Enfranchised in , the Mariners are a member of the Western Division of Major League Baseball's American League. Safeco Field has been the Mariners' home ballpark since July...

. Lape and second baseman Adam Yeager are playing this summer in the Cape Cod League, the premier wooden bat summer college baseball league, for the Brewster Whitecaps.
Marshall has an all time record of 1,232-1,346-12 (prior to the 2011 season).

Rivalries

Tulane University

Tulane University

Tulane University is a private, nonsectarian research university located in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States...

 and the Herd baseball team now seem to be bitter rivals as MU was 3–1–1 against the Green Wave in 2008, winning its first game ever back in April in New Orleans. Marshall returned to the "Big Easy" in May and knocked Tulane out of the C-USA Tournament on the Green Wave home field, Turchin Stadium, in the C-USA Tournament, 10–5 and 8–7. Yeager stole a league-record five bases against TU in the opening win, while Jeff Rowley scored the winning run in game two on a wild pitch in the bottom of the ninth.

Notable players

• Rick Reed
  Rick Reed (pitcher)
  Richard Allen Reed is a former starting pitcher in Major League Baseball who played for the Pittsburgh Pirates , Kansas City Royals , Texas Rangers , Cincinnati Reds , New York Mets and Minnesota Twins...
  
  
• Jeff Montgomery
• Harry Young, College Football Hall of Fame
  College Football Hall of Fame
  The College Football Hall of Fame is a hall of fame and museum devoted to college football. Located in South Bend, Indiana, it is connected to a convention center and situated in the city's renovated downtown district, two miles south of the University of Notre Dame campus. It is slated to move...
  
  member