Sam Piraro, a three-time Western Athletic Conference Coach of the Year, is now in his 22nd season in charge of the tradition-rich baseball program at San Jose State University, his alma mater.

Approaching the Thanksgiving holiday, Coach Piraro’s Spartans wrapped up the fall portion of their training regimen on Tuesday, November 25. The new season is set to begin under the Municipal Stadium lights on Friday night, February 20, against Saint Joseph’s University of the Atlantic 10 Conference.

Coach Piraro was kind enough recently to spend some time with SJSUSpartans.com and kick off the 2009 edition of our occasional website mini-feature, Baseball Q&A. We asked the skipper a variety of questions, ranging from those of a more personal nature, like musical tastes and off-the-field interests, to professional items, such as his recollections of the 2000 College World Series, and thoughts on the current state of college baseball. Though we normally hold these things to 10 questions, we ended up with upwards of 13 for the always-forthcoming Coach, and we easily could have kept going.

1. What types of music do you like to listen to, Coach? Who are some of your favorite musical artists?
I’m a real fan of oldies, 60’s music. Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, is one of my favorite groups. I also like The Beach Boys and the Eagles. I can listen to Eagles stuff all day long, and I love Frank Sinatra. That’s my idea of good music.

2. Any favorite movies? Do you have a favorite baseball movie?
My favorite baseball movie is probably Eight Men Out. I enjoyed that, because it had a historical element. There was truth to it. Also, of course, Bull Durham, but Eight Men Out, I could watch that multiple times. My favorite movie of all-time is The Godfather. The Godfather: Part II, actually, but I could watch the first one over and over as well.

3. Do you have any favorite television shows? We recall you being a fan of The Sopranos.
I watch them (on HBO) On Demand all the time. I love The Sopranos. It is so true of the Italian culture, and just watching them eat dinner, brings you back to your heritage.

I would say I also liked Leave It to Beaver, and The Three Stooges. Any time they appear on a marathon or something, I like that. When I was a kid, I used to like Combat and The Gallant Men. Those were World War II (shows). Combat was on Tuesday night and The Gallant Men was on Saturday night. Combat lasted about five years, The Gallant Men maybe about two or three. (I also liked) The Big Valley, Bonanza, stuff like that.

4. What are some of the things you like to do when you are away from the baseball diamond?
Well, I’m an avid reader. I love to read. I love watching football as a relaxing thing. As far as my family and traveling, we like to get away. Disneyland is a favorite venue of ours, and has been for many, many years. We like to go out to dinner and breakfast, just to catch up on family things. But, I do like to read, and I find that to be very relaxing.

I like reading non-fiction, about history. I consider myself a history connoisseur. I love reading about successful leaders. People that have been leaders, not necessarily coaches, but people like Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy, Franklin Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, and just some of the issues and problems that they ran up against, to see how they handled them. My library at home is very extensive. I do have bios on almost all successful baseball managers, football coaches and basketball coaches. You name it, I’ve read it.

5. We know you are a big fan of the San Francisco Giants. Can you share just one or two fond memories of following the Giants over the years? A favorite player or two?
My dad took me to my first Giants game in 1958 at Seals Stadium, and they played the Cincinnati Redlegs. The Giants lost the game, 9-6, that day. I can remember going to the first night game ever at Candlestick (Park), in 1960, walking into that stadium for the first time, and seeing the green grass. I’ll never forget that. I was eight at the time. The Cubs were in their blue, so the blue and the green, stuck out in my mind.

Willie Mays is my favorite player. There’s no doubt about that. He is the greatest player I ever saw. I thought he was a cartoon character. I thought the games were rigged at that time. I just expected that Mays was going to come up, late in the game, get the big hit, the home run, make the great play, steal the base, whatever. I thought it was a rigged deal. That’s how good he was.

6. Speaking of the Giants, he was out with an injury for essentially the entire 2008 season, but could you please talk a little bit about your former pupil, Kevin Frandsen, and share some thoughts on his development into a major league ballplayer and model citizen in the community?
Kevin was obviously a great player here. Kevin was one of those guys that was the first on the field and the last to leave. He literally was the last guy to leave. He wanted to be on the field. He enjoyed it. It was a great place of refuge for him. I always thought he had fun playing, even though he had a temper. Kevin could be very temperamental when he played, but he had great fun playing the game. I think that’s one of the reasons he’s moved up so quickly.

He moved up much more quickly than I thought. I can remember when the Giants were thinking of drafting him. Ned Colletti (former Giants Assistant General Manager and current Dodgers General Manager) had called me on several occasions, and wanted to know Kevin’s best position, and so on. I told Ned Colletti, I think it will be a three-year process, but once he gets up there, he will be very valuable to you. He got up there well before that, in I think a year and a half.

His great passion for the game is something that I remember. He knows the game. He called me the other night. He was looking for some drills, defensively, that I could help him with, from an infield perspective. That’s not unusual. We’ll talk about his swing occasionally. He’ll call me and say I’m having trouble with my timing, what do you think, and we’ll talk about that. We still have a very good relationship.

7. We are also aware that you greatly appreciate Italian cuisine, and are even somewhat of a cook. Tell us about that.
Well, first of all, my wife (JoAnn Piraro) is just an unbelievable cook. She can make every Italian dish you can think of. I, myself, I’m pretty good with the grill, to be honest with you. I’m going to be modest about it. I love making the Italian sausage and bell pepper, with my secret lemon-juice ingredient that I can’t disclose. If I tell you, I’d have to kill you.

So, I like entertaining, in the summer in particular. I like being on the grill. I love barbeque chicken. I’m pretty good at that, and spare ribs. I leave the Italian cooking to my wife, when it comes to sauce and pasta, because she is off the charts. But Italian food is my favorite. I could eat it seven nights a week if it was there for me.

8. If you could have dinner with any three people in history, who would they be?
Al Davis (Oakland Raiders President), General (George S.) Patton, and Vince Lombardi.

9. You’ve had a number of great assistant coaches over the years. With no disrespect to any of the previous ones, your newest, associate head coach Tom Kunis, has really drawn some extra notice. What does the addition of such a known figure both in this area, and nation-wide, do both to your current pitching staff, as well as your recruiting of the pitcher position?
I’ve been lucky. Tom was with us (before) for four years (1988-91), and we had some really good clubs, and I was real fortunate to have (former associate head coach) Doug Thurman for a number of years (1996-2006). Tom has unlimited passion and enthusiasm for what he does. Just having him out there makes for a real vibrant atmosphere when you are on the field. He’s just intent, locked in, he’s vocal, he’s not afraid to express himself and he’s passionate beyond passion. He demands the very best from the people that are with him, whether it’s field maintenance, with handling the field, whether it’s teaching a grip, whether it’s teaching a pickoff move, there’s that standard of excellence that he expects people around him to meet. So, I just giggle when I’m out there, because I see the impact that he’s making on our people, not just the pitchers, but people in general around him, and see that standard of excellence that we all like to be involved in.

Certainly, if you’re a pitcher, you have to look at Tom’s record very carefully, and the number of major-league pitchers he’s produced. With Tom’s credibility, any pitcher is going to have an interest. They’re going to say, “Hey, this guy has put a lot of guys in the big leagues.” That’s important to kids nowadays. That’s the credibility issue that certainly, in recruiting, you have to have.

10. You’ve stressed the importance of getting top area high school recruits into your program. In back-to-back years, you and your staff have brought aboard local prospects that were named to multiple Freshman All-America teams at the end of the season, in Kyle Bellows and Danny Stienstra. Can Michael Reiling (San Jose, Calif./Valley Christian HS) be the latest in this crop? Please talk to us about this pleasant trend.
Mike has a lot of fun playing. He has a lot of fun playing. Some people don’t know how to use that word properly. To me, fun is enjoyment through achievement, and to do that, you have to have great passion and play at full speed. Mike plays at full speed. Everything he does, even any mistakes he makes, are at full speed. That’s good. You can temper that. Those things can be tempered. Mike loves baseball. Even though he’s not a large individual, he plays with a big heart. He’ll swing the bat. He does not get cheated. He’s all over the field, and like I said, any mistake he’s going to make, is going to be one of aggressiveness, which, as a coach, you can really enjoy that.

Michael went to Valley Christian, which is a premier high school program. Coach (John) Diatte is a friend of mine. When you get a Valley Christian player, that’s really a good thing, just like when we got Danny from Saint Francis and Kyle from Santa Teresa. Certainly, if you had your druthers, you would love to pepper your roster with local kids, because they’ve got that commitment to living in this area, and when they put that uniform on and it says San Jose, that has special meaning. That’s what we try to tell our local recruits, is when that San Jose goes across your chest, that’s your hometown. That should carry extra meaning when you represent your university.

11. Can you isolate any one or two moments that stand out from the program’s first College World Series trip in 2000?
I can remember, when we first got off the plane in Omaha, as soon as we got into the airport, there were like six cameras, and media, press. Being from here, we don’t get that. It was just like, “Wow, this is a big thing.” And then, on the way to the hotel, I had the bus driver stop at Rosenblatt (Stadium), and I had all the guys get out. We went up to that statue (“Road to Omaha”). I had all the guys look at it and let them know that they had earned the right to be in that venue.

Of course, walking out, we played the first game there in 2000. We walked into that stadium. There were 25,000 people there. It was like, “This is quite an experience.” There were 25,000 at that game, a little over that. You don’t forget something like that.

12. As a long-time Division I head coach and a West Region representative on the NCAA Championship Selection Committee since 2006 (through 2010), can you please provide a brief synopsis of where you feel the college game is at right now? The popularity seems to be at an all-time high, with more national television coverage than ever before.
The game has never been better. All you have to do is look at the major-league rosters, and look at the number of college players that are matriculating to the big leagues in a short period of time. College baseball is the true minor leagues, as we speak right now, of Major League Baseball. It’s a combination of so many things. It’s a combination of players playing year-round, quality of coaching, the caliber of coaching, the use of technology, being able to use film to break down mechanics and things of that nature. Kids are bigger and stronger than they have ever been, faster than they’ve ever been. Especially in the good-weather locations, these kids are playing all the time. You’re seeing the college players get to the big leagues quicker than ever before, so the game itself is being played at a tremendously-high level right now, as high as it has ever been.

13. Finally, can you give fans of Spartan Baseball some reasons to look forward to the 2009 campaign? What should they look for in the new season?
If you’re a Spartan baseball fan, and you’ve followed us over the years, this particular season, we’re excited about our team, because of the experience that we have coming back. I’ve always been a guy that believes in that. I think that if you’ve been in the arena, and you’ve played against the competition, and you’ve had success, that the next time around, you should grow from that and be better. I’m anticipating this team being better than it was last year. Can I sit here and guarantee wins? No. In the back of my mind, I’ll have that number when we get closer to February. The health of our players, obviously, will play a big part in this. But do I expect this team to be better? Yes.

We have good experience. We have guys that are growing, and are getting bigger and stronger. They’ve been through the wars. They understand competition. I think they will be a very exciting team. We have really good speed. To me, that’s exciting. When you can run on a baseball field, whether it’s on the bases or in the field, it’s exciting. We have some guys that are going to be draft-type guys, that would be guys that you would want to come and watch play, so I think we feature some of that. I think we have some experienced pitching. We have some guys that pitched a lot last year, and have been in the program. I’m anticipating that they are going to upgrade their game. So, I’m excited to see our team, and the next step that they can take for this coming year.