A Public Love Affair

I will happily admit that the NCAA College World Series is my favourite NCAA championship, much more so than the Final Four or the increasingly farcical BCS Championship game. I have been told the Frozen Four is a blast but, having only a passing interest in hockey and absolutely no interest in the University of Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs I can’t make form an informed decision about that specific championship. I already have an unexplainable interest in college sports having come to them at a very late stage and the World Series has especially captured my imagination. 2010 was the first tournament I followed emphatically and this year’s will be the second, there are storylines a plenty, there always are and the biggest is the host site: Omaha.

The site lost some of its mythical qualities with the destruction of Jonny Rosenblatt Stadium but the NCAA kept the eight team tournament in Omaha, Nebraska which has become the heart of the tournament. Would it succeed elsewhere? Say down in Alex Box in Baton Rouge, Louisiana? Or even as a touring spectacle in the same model of the BCS? Yes it would but it wouldn’t be the same. Omaha has been the home of the College World Series since 1950 and the plan is to keep it there until 2035, by that point it would be almost impossible to take the tournament away at that stage, although this is the NCAA so who knows. The week of the College World Series is one the most economically beneficial to the city of Omaha, for example the 2007 World Series brought in $41 million to the city. The plot thickens this year with the first CWS being held at the brand new TD Ameritrade Park instead of the historic ballpark on the hill. Whether the new ballpark takes away some of the character remains to be seen, although a lot of that depends on how the fans take to the new cathedral to college baseball. As long as the fans from LSU continue flocking to the city I am sure that won’t be a problem.

The most enthralling team coming to the tournament this year are the California Golden Bears, a team who should be winding down their existence not preparing to play for a championship. In September 2010 the university announced that, as part of spending cuts, the athletic department would cut several programmes including the baseball team. Through charitable donations, help from friends and family and an endless campaign saw the team raise $9.7 million and successfully achieve their goal of reinstatement in April. After losing five of their final seven weekend series the Bears limped in to the postseason as a number 3 Regional seed in the Houston Regional. After losing to Baylor in their opening game the Bears beat Alcorn State, Rice and Baylor twice to reach the Super Regional where they despatched Dallas Baptist in two games to reach Omaha. Cal will begin play against number 1 seed Virginia on Sunday as huge underdogs, as they have been for the majority of the year, watching how this team reacts after its rollercoaster emotional journey will be one of the most intriguing aspects of this year’s World Series.

The other thing I will be watching closely is the progress of the three Southeastern Conference schools in Omaha this year, yes they were all supposed to be here and yes I may be a little biased towards SEC schools but it is the conference others measure themselves against and it’s always interesting to see how they react to the big game scenarios. The three schools, Florida, Vanderbilt and South Carolina all offer something a little different and equally interesting. Florida is perhaps the most complete team in Omaha this year especially if they can get Sophomore lefty Brian Johnson back from the concussion he suffered in the SEC tournament. They have a deadly rotation with Johnson as well as Hudson Randall and Karsten Whitson anchoring one of the nation’s best pitching staffs that combined with a potent line-up saw them start and finish the season as the number 1 ranked team in the country. Vanderbilt began the season as a team heralded for their pitching and very little else but, as the year progressed, Aaron Westlake and Jason Esposito became increasingly influential figures in an offence that surprised almost everyone, finishing the season fifth in the nation in hitting (.319) and fourteenth in the nation in runs scored per game (7.1). Not that this has affected their pitching staff in any negative way, the pitching staff has gone 5-0 in the postseason with a 1.20 ERA with 47 strikeouts in 45 innings. They also had all three members of the weekend rotation drafted in the first six rounds while the team set an SEC record by having 12 players drafted this year. The Gamecocks of South Carolina come to Omaha this year a very different team to the one that won the College World Series last year. With Sam Dyson and Blake Cooper both leaving school after last year’s success it looked like Ray Tanner would struggle replacing the lost starters, as it was they got even better. The rotation was fronted by last year’s World Series hero Michael Roth who put up the best starting pitcher ERA in the nation with a 1.02 mark and has been backed by the nation’s premier closer in Matt Price who put up a 2.25 ERA in 48 innings across 30 appearances. Expect the Gamecocks to hit the ball well all week, especially Christian Walker and Adrian Morales, but whether they can repeat depends wholly on their pitching.

The College World Series should be a significantly bigger event because of its history, its sense of occasion and the event. It might not have the pomp and circumstance that surrounds the BCS Championship game or the Final Four but it is as close to the raw emotion of baseball that you’re likely to see and that is the one thing the new stadium can’t take away, the emotion of the occasion. If there is one thing you do this week watch at least one game from Omaha and see what all the fuss is about.