The
Road to Omaha will have to go through Dirtbags,
Blair Field
By Mike Bower
On-line Forty-Niner
Hanging
in the coach’s office at Blair Field, next
to an uncountable number of memorabilia,
is a picture of a crowded Rosenblatt Stadium
- home of every College World Series since
1951.
In the beginning of the season, every college
baseball team sets foot on the diamond with
hopes of traveling to Omaha, Nebraska to
play in front of such a crowd at Rosenblatt
Stadium in June, but just eight teams get
the pleasure.
The last time the Long Beach State Dirtbags
had the pleasure of traveling to Omaha was
in 1998, but they have more than a great
chance of doing it this year and I will
tell you why.
The third-ranked 49ers will finish Big West
Conference play this weekend with a three-game
series at fourth-ranked Cal State Fullerton.
The Dirtbags need to win just one of the
three games to sew up its first Big West
title in six years, but more than a Big
West title is on the line for the Dirtbags
this weekend.
If the 49ers manage to win the Big West
- or I should say - when they win the Big
West, they would win a prize that could
be all they need to get into the College
World Series - home-field advantage.
When the Dirtbags win the Big West there
should be no way outside of highway robbery
that they don’t get to host a Regional Tournament
at Blair Field, and they should also obtain
at least a top-eight ranking in the nation.
The top-eight ranking is important for the
Dirtbags because the playoffs, set up by
the Baseball Committee, puts the top-eight
teams in the nation in different brackets,
which means they can not meet until the
College World Series.
If everything works out right for the Dirtbags,
the team could possibly host a Regional
Tournament and a Super-Regional Tournament
at Blair Field, where the team’s record
is 20-8.
With that in mind, I choose the Dirtbags
as one of the eight qualifiers to go to
Omaha this year. With Abe Alvarez, Jered
Weaver and now Cesar Ramos coming on it’s
hard to imagine the 49ers sitting at home
June 13. Despite those three getting the
job done on the mound, the 49ers are the
best-fielding team in the nation and have
been on fire with the bats lately.
UC Riverside head coach Jack Smitheran put
it best after the three-game sweep the Dirtbags
handed the Highlanders last weekend.
“That is a national championship team in
the making if they keep playing like that,”
he said.
My other seven participants to get through
the Regional and Super-Regional tournaments
are Florida State, Rice, Texas, Arizona
State, Stanford, Fullerton, and Louisiana
State University.
It’s really tough to predict the team’s
that will advance without the knowledge
of what teams are in the 16-Regional Tournaments.
The announcement of the 64-teams and the
site each team will play at is scheduled
for May 25 and 26 on ESPN and ESPN 2 respectively.
If
two teams I have chosen are in the same
Regional-Tournament or if they have a chance
to meet in a Super-Regional match up is
unknown right now, but I will stand by my
choices until I hear the announcement of
the 64-teams.
Florida State and Rice are the first and
second-ranked teams in the country. I haven’t
gotten the chance to watch Rice play, but
I did watch Florida State defeat the Miami
Hurricanes on television 1-0, and then get
trounced 14-3 the next day. The Seminoles
are a well-balanced team. The team is hitting
.305 and the pitching staff has an impressive
earned run average of 2.64 - second in the
nation.
Rice had the season’s longest win streak
with 30-straight wins. They also beat a
really good Texas team, 2-1, back in March.
I don’t think Rice played enough good competition
to win it all, but I would never count out
a team with the fourth-best ERA in the nation
and a .322 team-batting average.
Which brings me to the next team - the Fullerton
Titans. The Titans are even more balanced
than the Seminoles. The Titans have the
fifth-best team batting average in the nation
(.338) while holding down the third-best
team ERA (2.74). The Titans took two out
of three games from the Dirtbags earlier
in the season.
LSU is a long shot to make it to Omaha but
they always seem to pull it off when everyone
least expects it. I saw them earlier in
the year at Blair Field and they didn’t
look too good. I am taking them as a team
to watch out for because the team has been
putting up a lot of runs lately - 61 runs
in its last four games.
Overall, every team has as good a chance
as the other to win the national championship.
Usually the team who is playing the best
baseball towards the end of the year has
the advantage, which is why I choose our
Dirtbags to win it all.
No, not because I attend Long Beach State,
but because they have played the toughest
schedule in the nation and survived. The
freshmen are getting the job done and the
team has been playing flawless baseball
lately. Most importantly though, the pitching
and defense has always been there for the
Dirtbags.
There is a saying in baseball: “Offense
wins games, but pitching and defense win
championships.”
The Dirtbags have all three peaking at the
right time.
If you want to keep up with the Dirtbags
then be sure to listen on KBEACH.org as
all games are broadcast on the web site.
The Regional Tournament is slated for May
30 - June 1. The Super-Regional Tournament
is June 6 - 9 and the College World Series
begins June 13.
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