Eddie Sutton still in great form

Eddie Sutton didn’t steal the show during the Warren Spahn Award Gala on Thursday night.

He did tell the night’s best story, though.

The former Oklahoma State basketball coach introduced Dave Hunziker, who fittingly received the 10th annual Bill Teegins Excellence in Sportscasting Award, but on a night that celebrated baseball and the major’s best left-handed pitcher, Sutton couldn’t help himself from telling a baseball story.

He’s a big baseball fan anyway.

He’s such a big fan, in fact, that it impacted his wedding day once upon a time. Bride-to-be Patsy told him that they needed to find a date, and he suggested June 1.

“Will that be appropriate for you?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Well, you know, let’s go on a honeymoon to St. Louis because they’ve got great restaurants, a wonderful zoo,” he said.

What he didn’t tell her?

“The reason I picked that particular date was the Dodgers were coming to St. Louis to play the Cardinals,” Sutton recalled Thursday night. “The Brooklyn Dodgers.”

He smiled.

“We’ve been married 53 years, so I guess it worked out OK.”

Sutton, who will celebrate his 75th birthday later this year, seemed sharp as ever Thursday night. Sutton gushed about Teegins, who was his radio play-by-play man for many years at OSU. Then, he talked lovingly about Hunziker, who replaced Teegins after he died in the plane crash that killed 10 members of the Cowboy basketball family.

Time has aged Sutton, but then, hasn’t it done that to all of us? His mind and his memories are sharp.