Missouri State

STEVE HACKER
Baseball, 1993-95
Inducted 2012

Steve Hacker was a three-year slugging first baseman and designated hitter for the baseball Bears of coach Keith Guttin from 1993 to 1995. Hacker earned Missouri Valley Conference all-league first team honors all three years at MSU and the St. Louis native led the Bears in a number of offensive categories each of his last two years. He batted .337 with seven homers and 39 RBI's as the Bears finished as league runner-up his freshman season. Hacker hiked his plate production as a sophomore, slamming 15 homers and driving in 50 runs with a .330 average and 131 total bases as the Bears were again second in the MVC. He then put up a monster season his junior year in which he had 63 runs, 96 hits, and a .409 batting average and chalked up single season school records with 37 homers, 95 runs batted in, 225 total bases and a .957 slugging average. He led all NCAA Division I hitters in homers and slugging average and his home run total was the third best in Division I history. Hacker belted two homers in a game six different times and had a three-homer game in an extra-inning win over Missouri. He still ranks among the MSU career top ten in doubles, homers, runs batted in, game-winning RBIs, extra-base hits, total bases and slugging. As a junior in 1995, his slugging exploits earned him first team All-America honors from Collegiate Baseball, Baseball America, National Collegiate Baseball Writers and NCAA/American Baseball Coaches Association as he led the Bears to a runner-up spot in the MVC tourney and an NCAA regional tourney appearance in Fresno, Calif. Hacker was drafted and signed by the Atlanta Braves after his junior season at MSU and played professionally for six years, reaching the AAA level in 2000 in the Minnesota Twins organization. He's now back in his native St. Louis where he works as a private hitting instructor.