Bill Little commentary: Eye of the storm
June 20, 2009
Bill Little, Texas Media Relations OMAHA, Neb. -- The powerful storms which rolled through America’s Midlands early Friday had cleared Omaha late that night. But in the bottom of the ninth inning of the baseball game between Texas and Arizona State, thunder and lightning arrived for the Longhorns. The first championship games of the two respective four-team brackets had been pushed back an hour and a half because of lingering showers which followed nature’s sound-and-light show, which hit the city about 3 a. m. In the first game, LSU had punched its ticket to the best-of-three Championship series by disposing of Arkansas. The winner’s bracket on the other side was a match-up of two of the most storied programs in college baseball. Texas was on its 33rd trip, and the Sun Devils were here for the 21st time. And despite some of the totally out of character defensive plays by this usually superb-fielding Longhorn team, the game entered the ninth inning as by far the best pitching match-up in the series. Mike Leake, the ASU ace who had been the victim of Texas’ six-run comeback that set the stage for a Longhorn victory in the second game of the tourney, showed why pro scouts rank him as a “can’t miss” prospect hurler. Cole Green had been gritty and good for Texas, holding off Sun Devil threats early in the game. The situation was simple: Texas wins and it advances to the Championship Series. Arizona State wins and the two play Saturday night to see who will play LSU on Monday. To that point, the game had been representative of Augie Garrido’s theory that baseball is not a nine-inning game, it is a game of nine innings. Inning by inning, he will say. Win the inning. Arizona State had scored the first run in the third, and Michael Torres had answered with a solo homer to tie it. The Sun Devils went up, 2-1, in the fourth, and Texas tied it in the fifth.
By the time the ninth inning started, Leake and Green had left the contest, and the game belonged to the ace relievers of the two teams. Austin Wood had appeared in 38 of Texas’ 63 games and Mitchell Lambson, a freshman lefthander, had pitched in 31 of ASU’s 64 games. In the top of the ninth, the Sun Devils’ best hitter, Jason Kipnis, led off by taking an 11-pitch at bat before slapping a single that caromed off of Texas first baseman Brandon Belt, and an ensuing error put him to second base. Wood retired the next two batters before Zach Wilson, who had entered the game in the seventh, drove an opposite field triple to right field and Kipnis came home with what might have been the winning run. Wilson died at third, the seventh batter in scoring position stranded by the Sun Devils. It was 3-2, but Texas, as the home team, had one more at bat. Throughout this tournament, Garrido has marveled at the resiliency of his team. In eight games including three in the Regional, three in the Super Regional, and the first two in Omaha, the Longhorns had courted drama. Augie has often joked with his team about the power of “Mother Momentum,” a fickle sort of female who takes the words of Darrell Royal to heart -- she will “Dance with who brung her.” “And there she sits in that other dugout, boys,” Augie will say, “All dressed up for the party and just waiting. Why don’t one of you guys go ask her to dance?” With one out in the bottom of the ninth inning, Longhorn catcher Cameron Rupp walked to the plate, and with one swing of the bat on a 3-1 pitch, swept the lady up and began what would become the most remarkable "Texas two-step" of the bases the old CWS has ever seen. Throughout his stay on the mound, Lambson had started Rupp off with off-speed pitches. Now, with a 3-1 count and not wanting to walk the tying run, he looked in for the sign. “This,” Augie Garrido said in the Texas dugout, “is where he throws the fast ball. Let’s see what Cameron can do with it.” Augie knew what was coming, and so did Cameron Rupp. The sounds of Rosenblatt Stadium are part of the experience of the College World Series. Crowds respect the game and the teams. They cheer and they have fun. But there are specific moments which last a lifetime. Lambson threw. Rupp swung. The clinch of the metal bat sounded like the toll of an air hammer bursting through a concrete wall. The crowd gasped, and then began to cheer. Cameron Rupp’s ball rose high and deep, straight toward the 22-foot center field wall. Interstate 80, which runs west to east just beyond the left field wall, travels across the Missouri River from Nebraska to Iowa. There’s a chance that Cameron Rupp’s baseball might have done the same thing. The home run would draw media adjectives such as “massive” and “majestic,” and it was all of those things. It was also a tie game at 3-3. Thunder had arrived on a clear Omaha night to tie the score. In a meeting with ESPN before the Longhorns’ first game, Garrido was describing the personnel in his lineup. He got to the ninth hitter, Connor Rowe. He told them Rowe was a sound hitter who was in the ninth spot to help set the table by getting on base for the top of the order. But, he said, “He’s got some lightning in his body. When he hits it, it can go far.” The “book” on how to pitch Connor Rowe early in the year had been to throw him breaking stuff and change-ups. That is all he had seen from Lambson. And that was the first and last pitch Lambson threw Connor Rowe with two outs and the score tied in the bottom of the ninth inning. Cameron Rupp was putting on his catcher’s gear, getting ready for a 10th inning when Rowe swung and the ball lifted like a laser shot toward the left field bleachers. “I started stripping them off,” Rupp said. “I didn’t want to miss this.” Kole Calhoun, who had been the hitting star for ASU through the tournament, eyed the ball as he retreated to the left field wall. The Texas players streamed from the dugout, and then slowed just a bit as Calhoun appeared to be drawing a bead on the line drive as it sunk toward the top of the wall. But then, a fellow in a yellow shirt about five rows deep started scrambling for the baseball. And with that, on that same clear night in Omaha, lightning had struck at Rosenblatt Stadium. Texas was going to the Championship Series. On their off days, the Longhorns have made good use of their time here. They have practiced and watched baseball games, and touched lives with visits to Boys Town and the Omaha Children’s Hospital. Saturday, they took a break and headed to the Henry Doorly Zoo, an Omaha landmark which rests just beyond the right field bleachers at Rosenblatt. When the city builds the CWS a new home in downtown Omaha that will open in 2011, the zoo will expand onto what is now stadium grounds. As the Longhorn family celebrated, it reached across sports and miles. Colt McCoy was texting Austin Wood after the game, and Mack Brown was texting UT President Bill Powers and his wife, Kim, who had made the trip Friday. Saturday’s off day will pass soon, into the pre-Championship series practice at Rosenblatt and media interviews. In interviews Saturday before the trip to the zoo, Garrido typically turned to humor as he marveled at the success of his team. “People asked me if we were going to practice today,” he said. “I said ‘Practice? You can’t practice the way this team wins.’ Sometimes we are the Bad News Bears and then we turn right around and are the New York Yankees.” In Omaha this team has gotten to the finals with a walk-off walk in the bottom of the ninth inning against Southern Mississippi, a comeback from being behind 6-0 to beat Arizona State on Tuesday and two home runs, including a walk-off shot, to beat ASU again Friday night in the bottom of the ninth. “Do you think this team has what it takes to beat a team that is playing as well and is as hot as LSU?” Augie was asked by the ESPN crew Saturday. “I don’t know,” he deadpanned. “Ask me that question in hindsight.” And then he went on to explain that he really couldn’t predict baseball, any more than you can gauge where the thunder will roll and lightning will strike. Right now, he said, he is just waiting for the magic of the next miracle. |
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