It was 1994, and I had only one connection to the College World Series.
Someone a year ahead of me in high school was the starting catcher for South Carolina years before when the Gamecocks went to the CWS, and I did a story on him.
I still remember him talking about goose bumps from getting a standing ovation from the crowd of about 15,000 after hitting a home run. I didn’t know that any college baseball crowd could be like that.
The CWS then vacated my mind for years until the job was covering LSU when the Tigers were in the middle of a dominant run in college baseball in the 1990s.
I still remember the regional that year in Baton Rouge and legendary old Alex Box Stadium, which had the same zip as LSU’s football home across the street, with fewer bourbon-like aromas.
And that’s when college baseball added a fan.
Naturally, in what proved to be an omen for lottery ticket luck in the future, LSU went to Omaha again with yours truly in tow and was done in two, 6-3 to Florida State and 20-6 to Cal State Fullerton.
Fine, all the logistical wrestling to actually get to Omaha, and I get two games and less than a week.
But in that short period of time, the College World Series and Omaha added a fan.
Snobs and those with limited cultural and social interests will scoff.
Omaha?
Yeah, Omaha, a city of about 450,000 people, more than Cleveland, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Tampa and St. Louis, among other cities, and home to as many Fortune 500 companies as Philadelphia and Los Angeles, and more than Miami, Boston, and San Diego, among others.
The metro area of 850,000 is a little smaller, on scale, but still outdoes Akron, Bakersfield, Baton Rouge, Des Moines, Knoxville, Lexington, Mobile and Syracuse, to name a few areas.
There’s a there there.
Scores of games have passed since then, ranging from Little League softball and baseball to a Super Bowl or two. But, man, I want to go back.
Old Rosenblatt Stadium was like many of our sports shrines: something of a dump with remarkable character that sparked chills from veterans and newbies. It was old, but it had been upgraded pretty well.
One needed to work out before venturing to the press box, which involved walking across a roof and climbing a ladder for an aged spot that, if I recall, didn’t have adequate air conditioning.
And summer is summer if you’re below the Dakotas.
I remember a tremendous barbecue place, a jazz venue and enough steakhouses to give a cardiologist or health club owner chills.
More than that, I remember a city of nearly half a million people embracing an under-the-radar event. I’m not sure what to compare it to.
Imagine a big event with little or not discernible gouging, where the locals are happy to have you and want you back, and want to have fun with you while you’re there.
How else to figure 27,000 fans from two schools 1,200 and 1,300 miles away for the championship round that ended Tuesday night? That’s more than families and girlfriends.
And college baseball has been battling for attention -- and money -- for a long time. One reason the game is arriving is because of Omaha.
But sadly and predictably, they all screwed up one thing.
A new stadium is fine, and certainly was needed. But they should have made as much of what you can see as much like Rosenblatt as possible. Great stadiums aren’t symmetrically perfect, with impeccable paint jobs and everything just so. Imperfections are what we love about our Wrigleys and Fenways and Lambeaus and Boston Gardens and Cameron Indoors and dozens of college football stadiums.
The bright-colored seats and patchwork additions made Rosenblatt different.
Go ahead and replace a legendary home, but give the new one a lot of the charm of the former one. Change the name, fine, but don’t change the aura (if that’s possible), don’t make it corporate, because corporate sucks the life out of anything and everything.
All that said, here’s a suggestion.
Pick a year, save up, and go to the CWS whether you have a team there or not. It’s that good an experience.
Even if only for half of the series, it’s worth the trip, and from old Rosenblatt in a middle-class neighborhood to the baseball itself is why so many with no allegiances keep going back.
You’ll be ready to go back before you leave.
Contact Michael A. Lough at 744-4626 or mlough@macon.com
