Elijah MacNamee greets Jake Mangum at home plate one last time (Eric Sorenson)

Fitt: Mangum’s Mark On College Baseball Will Endure

OMAHA — Over the course of four scintillating seasons at Mississippi State, Jake Mangum did things on the baseball diamond that amazed us all, over and over and over and over again. As a player, Mangum is a rare breed — an electrifying athlete with top-of-the-scales speed, a switch-hitter with an uncanny knack for finding the barrel, a leadoff man with an aggressive swing-first mentality, a premium defender with a rifle arm in center field.

Players like Mangum don’t come along very often. He is a truly great player … but we’ve seen dynamic speedsters with skill sets that compare[…]