GC Baseball: Corsicana's "Wizard" Heath Autrey gets No. 400

Feb. 29—LINDALE — On a cold and cloudy day in Lindale, Corsicana's Wizard — the incomparable Heath Autrey — won his 400th career game on a high school baseball diamond.

Joy, pure, sweet joy followed. You could see it in Autrey's eyes and hear it in his voice — and feel it in the way he hugged his wife, Whittney, his best friend and biggest fan, after the victory. She's been a big (no, Huge) part of his success.

"It was great to have Whittney here today," Autrey said. "Whittney was here and my little brother B.J., who lives in Lindale, was here. It was a special day."

Autrey's son, Easton, the top sophomore baseball prospect in Texas and one of the best (ranked 48th in the 2026 class) in the country, was also there. He celebrated by smashing a memorable grand slam in the second inning.

"Easton hit the grand slam and got us going early," Autrey said. "That was a special moment."

Autrey's oldest son, Hunter, was a monster player in high school and an All-State player who played for the Tiger 2019 team that went to state. Hunter is now at Sam Houston, where he belted a 444-foot home run a few days ago. There's no truth to the rumor that Hunter wanted to re-measure his blast to call it a 400-foot shot to celebrate his father.

If they had a cake to celebrate, it would have had to have been an upside down cake, because the Tigers' 17-1 Mercy Rule win over Brownsboro in the Lindale Tournament Thursday was nothing like Autrey's career — a long, fabulous run that saw Autrey beat opponents in every imaginable (and unimaginable) way with a steel-trap mind and a no-blink, gutsy approach to the game that produced runs out of thin air.

They call him "The Wizard" because of that magic. He got the name from Todd Wills, a wizard with words himself, a remarkable, award-winning sports writer at the Daily Sun and the Dallas Morning News for years who gave Autrey the name 13 years ago during Autrey's first year coaching the Tigers. It stuck — just like Autrey.

At Corsicana, they play Autrey-Ball, a special brand of now-you-see it, now-you-don't magic on the diamond that gives a whole new meaning to the term "small ball," and leaves opponents and their fans cursing Autrey (You know who you are, Ennis, Lindale, Whitehouse ...) and a long list of other teams that left shaking their heads in frustration after losing to Autrey's Tigers.

It's not just the art of the game, it's Autrey's game of the art.

The art is in the preparation.

It's true that Autrey's teams — the very kids who produced 400 victories — won most of the time before the first pitch was thrown.

"We put in a lot of hours," Autrey said. "A lot of hours away from our families — a lot of early mornings. We believe in preparation. It's a mental game and once they figure that out through preparation that's when the light goes on. It's up to the players to figure it out."

Autrey's kids believe in their legendary coach who teaches them to overcome the odds and the pressures of the game by preparing for what's ahead. They prepare in countless ways every day — that's the routine in Corsicana — and the foundation for what happens on the diamond.

"It's just the way we do things," he said. "We put a lot of attention to detail and we work on the details."

It pays off, time and time again.

All of his players say it in one way or another that "We don't feel the pressure of those (difficult) situations of pressure. We've been taught that when that happens we fall back on our preparation and trust our preparation."

And yes, yes, yes, it's all about pitching and defense at Price Field, where all of Autrey's teams know what it takes to win (273 of Autrey's 400 have been as a Tiger).

Here's another Autrey irony: The Tigers won Thursday with a team that didn't have much time to prepare. Honest. Consider this: Autrey won his 400th game with the youngest team he's ever coached at Corsicana ...

They call Autrey "The Wizard" but there's no one behind the curtain. This Wizard is right there at the top of the dugout or coaching from third base, making it happen pitch-to-pitch (or as Autrey likes to say pitch-2-pitch).

He's three innings ahead, and if the other guys blink, they pay for it. But winning No. 400 brought other thoughts.

"You think about winning 400 games, winning 20 games a year for 20 years," he said. "That's the goal every year and we've been able keep that pace. That's a lot of sacrifice from a lot of people to do it. But when you think about winning 400 games, you also think about the losses."

Autrey lost to the No. 6 team in the nation at the 2019 state tournament, a team with two sons of Ranger players, including Bobby Witt Jr., the No. 2 player in the MLB draft that spring who signed with the Royals for $7 million a week before Witt's team beat the Tigers 2-1 in the semifinals and then won the title game easily.

Autrey has had some bitter losses. He lost a game in the Region Semifinals a few years ago when the team that beat him scored three runs late in the game that should have never counted. The umpires either didn't know the rule (if the ball hits the batter in play, the batter is out and no one advances) or just chose to ignore it.

That Tiger team, which was led by Zane Petty and Brydan Hernandez — a couple of unforgttable players — looked like it and felt like it was going to the state tournament before the umps dropped the ball and dropped their rulebooks.

Autrey's a winner — a big winner every year.

It works for the Tigers because Autrey works. He always has and after winning 400 on Thursday he was quick to give credit to the men and mentors who brought him to this day.

Autrey sat there and felt an avalanche of memories, places, names and baseball moments that came flooding over him.

"When I sat there and thought about winning 400 I thought about my high school coach Bill Midkiff," Autrey said. "He was a Hall of Fame coach from Waxahachie High School, where I played. I think of my college coach, Al Ogletree at UT Pan Am and my best friend Skip Johnson, the head coach at Oklahoma."

Autrey has had so many different teams, teams that won in different ways, and after getting 400, he was incredibly proud of all his players that brought him to this game.

"I've been at Corsicana 13 years and I'm thankful to all my players," he said. "We've had a long list of All-State players, great players. I've been lucky to have so many good players, great players ...

"And this (400) is also a tribute to a lot of great assistant coaches," he said. "And I want to thank my Superintendent and the administration for their support, and the support of the community. Without the community support it's (400) not possible."

The Corsicana community that has embraced Autrey and his program was never on display like it was in 2019 when the Tigers reached Round Rock and the state baseball tournament. The Tiger faithful was there. Every step of the way large groups of Tiger fans showed up at the corner of Forrest Land and Beaton to give the Tigers sendoffs before every game on the road to the playoffs and when they left for Round Rock a caravan of honking cars escorted them down the highway.

It's a shame he didn't get No. 400 at home, where he won No. 300 and celebrated with friends, family and a big Tiger crowd.

Most Tigers and Tiger fans can appreciate the irony of winning No. 400 in Lindale, which isn't lost on Autrey or on any of his players and fans who have followed his remarkable career at Price Field, where he turned the baseball team into a state power and one of the most respected programs in Texas. Lindale was an old rival from the days when the Tigers played in the East Texas-heavy District 16-5A conference.

Their biggest win against Lindale came in the 2019 run to state. The Tigers played all their playoff games to get to state in best-of-three series except one — a winner-take-all Area Round one game final against Lindale at Price Field.

It was more like "The Nightmare at Price" that night when Lindale — a team the Tigers had no-hit earlier in the season — took a 5-1 lead into the bottom of the sixth. The Tigers, down to their last six outs, had their biggest and best comeback of the season, scoring eight runs in a euphoric sixth to beat Lindale 9-5.

The single image of Tiger first baseman Ty Nolen standing on the field that night, screaming to the heavens in celebration at the game's end doesn't need a frame.

Everything around him was frame enough — the utter joy and unabashed pandemonium that came spilling out of the Tiger dugout, taking over the night and the diamond, where the Corsicana kids jumped and danced and hugged and shouted and hugged some more, embracing each other and the moment. No one wanted to let go.

That was just one of the 400 games Autrey won to get to Thursday's milestone.

Just one ...