The magic number for the WVU baseball team to clinch a second Big 12 Conference title in three years remains at one. (Photo courtesy of BlueGoldNews.com)

MORGANTOWN — If I may offer up a sportswriter’s personal tale first before delving into the situation West Virginia’s baseball finds itself in this week, I would like to turn the clock back to 1970.

It was early August and the team that was becoming the Big Red Machine was running away with the National League Western Division championship, up 12 games on the Los Angeles Dodgers in a race that would see them win 102 games under first-year manager Sparky Anderson.

The team was in San Francisco and was to play a night game, but the night before I had spent a rather long evening trading baseball and newspaper stories until the wee, wee hours of the morning, with Dave Burgin, the sports editor of the San Francisco Examiner, the afternoon paper at the time.

In the midst of the conversation, which a young and, obviously, naive sportswriter thought was just two guys talking and certainly, considering the alcohol consumed, off the record, Burgin had asked me to assess what I thought of Anderson, who had gotten off to a 70-30 start on the season.

My reply was that he obviously had done nothing wrong but that I wasn’t sure he should be the Manager of the Year in the National League because he had such a good team that included the likes of Pete Rose, Johnny Bench and Tony Perez. It was an honest assessment, the kind you and your buddies pass back and forth in the barroom of your choice.

Next day, though, I pick up the newspaper and see a story where I was being quoted that Anderson should not be manager of the year, hardly the way to solidify a relationship with a new manager.

So first thing that afternoon at Candlestick Park I approached Sparky Anderson in the manager’s office and asked him if he had seen the paper. He had not, so I explained the situation, explained what I said and how it was the way I felt but certainly not for publication … and if it were I would have been the one publishing it.

Anderson, then just 36 but with a face that seemed to age far faster than the calendar was proceeding, looked up at me.

“Bobby, Bobby, Bobby,” he said, as he often did. “You are right. I haven’t done anything yet to earn consideration for that. Now don’t you worry about it.”

It was one of those moments all of us have no matter what the job you hold and certainly I was grateful for the way Anderson accepted it and I think of it today because of the situation West Virginia’s baseball team has put itself into in Steve Sabins’ first year of running the show.

His team won its first 14 games, raced out to a big lead in the Big 12 standings, put together numbers that the program really had never surpassed before. But, as we head into the final weekend of the season, someone asked me the same type of question Dave Burgin had asked all those many years ago.

Needing one win now to clinch the regular season title, Sabins’ team has stumbled badly, losing three of its last four games and five of its last eight. His bullpen has become unhinged down the stretch with two of his key relievers — Reese Bassinger and Carson Estridge– being touched up over their two appearances in Kansas State for 13 runs (12 earned) on 11 hits in 4.1 innings of work.

There is no secret what happened. Pitt scored 5 in the ninth to rally to win, Kansas State scored 6 in the ninth to win and 7 in its last at bat to rally and win.

Is it possible that playing a weak schedule — WVU was ranked at about 170 in strength of schedule as it went into the Kansas State series — has caught up with the team? Is this just the inevitable rough spell that nearly every team that plays 60 or so games must go through during the course of a season?

Doesn’t really matter. Sabins showed through it all to get into position to take the league title, not allowing adversity such as key injuries derail his team, and using his pitching deftly as he eased Jack Kartsonas into the rotation, handling his bullpen and using advanced metrics to create advantages.

But now we find out how he will handle the psyche of his team when it is faced with adversity, how he manages with the red emergency light on and if he is simply trying to reach his destination with his gas tank on empty.

This is now the manager’s time of year. Winning games is one thing. Winning championships is quite something else.

Take Jim Leyland as the perfect example. He was an unknown, like Sparky Anderson, who put together a wonderful team in Pittsburgh, bringing the dead back to life and winning three consecutive divisional championships.

But he needed to add a World Series championship to his resume, which he did in Miami, to be a serious Hall of Fame candidate.

Same manager, but sometimes they judge managers or coaches on the rings they wear when they come to write the final resume.

So it is that Sabins has to get his team back to square one, to put a patch on the bullpen, to reignite the fire that had burned within the Mountaineers throughout the season, for winning the league is only step No. 1 along the way as there awaits a Regional, probably in Morgantown; a Super Regional and the the ultimate for a team that has never gone to the World Series, winning that trip to Omaha.

It’s a tall order for a first-year manager, but Sabins seems to have the right equipment for the job.