THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES

By: Eric Sorenson

And it’s Coach Paul Mainieri and his LSU Tigers!

As the great Beano Cook once said, as you get older you start to cheer for people more than you do teams.

No statement could be more true for Paul Mainieri, the head coach of LSU. In his third year on the job, the Tiger head honcho picked up his first national title with an 11-4 win over Texas at Rosenblatt Stadium on Wednesday night.

But my point here is that he’s truly, truly one of the “nice guys” in all of college baseball. And he deserves this, big time, people.

I’ve never had a sit-down interview with a head coach where I almost had to tear myself away because he just loved spending time talking college baseball. That’s what it was like in Coach Mainieri’s office on January 8th, 2008.

A lifelong baseball man, Coach Mainieri practically grew up with stitches on his head as well, being the son of one of the best junior college coaches in baseball history (his father coached at Miami Dade Community College). You could see the pride oozing out of him as he recounted at the press conference his feelings as the 9th inning wound down tonight.

“I told my father after the game that that all during the 9th inning, all I could think of was him. All the great things he taught me and how proud he would be now that I won a national championship.” Coach recounted. “I think I would’ve been really disappointed if we didn’t win the national championship because it was almost like I would have let my father and my mother down.”

No need to worry coach. Your place in one of the nation’s top college baseball factories is cemented now.

“Throughout my whole life I’ve dreamt of this moment after the game where I can talk about the national championship and now that moment is here and it’s almost surreal.”

Believe Coach Mainieri when he says coming to LSU was a tough decision. He loved Notre Dame and was happy there. But when the call came, he had to make “the toughest decision in my life to leave Notre Dame.” But he knew Baton Rouge was the place for him.

As he stated in my interview I did with him in 2008, “I spent my whole life selling people on the idea that college baseball was a great sport.” He rehashed again tonight. “But when I came here I knew there was no selling the sport, Skip Bertman had already done that.”

He also didn’t turn away from the pressure of the gig.

“I embraced the pressure, really.” He says while still smiling that child-like grin. “You have to. The day I took the job I knew what the standard was. But I came here BECAUSE of the expectations. I accepted them and embraced them. You see how it’s paid off now.”

Coach went through a myriad of emotions tonight after winning the brass ring in Rosenblatt. But there’s not a single one he will ever forget. He rattled off all the people he would like to thank, including the people of Louisiana, his players, his family and all the many past players he coached and his staff members at his stops at St. Thomas (a division II school in Miami), Air Force and Notre Dame.

“To be honest everyone I mention are all a part of this with me. I’m just a very very lucky man to be a coach of this outstanding team. It all comes back to these kids. They did everything they needed to do to be called champions.”

Congrats coach. Way to bring that thing home.

GAME 15.
LSU vs. Texas, title game.
This was LSU’s own personal house party. They’ve been renting the place out for the last nine years. So it was about time to throw their own hoe-down Rosenblatt style. Teams like Oregon State, Fullerton, Miami, Rice, Fresno State, et al… let LSU just say an all-inclusive “you’re welcome” here. From the sixth inning on tonight, this was a cajun party just waiting to happen. And when Louis Coleman struck out Connor Rowe for the last out of the game, it was Mardi Gras in June.

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Conditions At Gametime:
85 degrees, sunny skies, SE winds at 5mph.
6:10pm game time

L.S.U. – 310 005 011 – 11 12 0
Texas – 002 020 000 – 4 9 1

WP: Anthony Ranaudo (12-3)
LP: Brandon Workman (3-5)
Sv: None

Top Hitters.
LSU:
Sean Ochinko, 4-for-5, 3RBI, HR
Jared Mitchell, 1-for-4, 3RBI, HR
Micah Gibbs, 2-for-4, RBI
D.J. LeMahieu, 2-for-4

UT:
Michael Torres, 2-for-5
Travis Tucker, 2-for-5
Kevin Keyes, 1-for-3, 2RBI, HR

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IN A NUTSHELL:
The game started to unravel for Texas in the 6th inning. It’s never a good sign to walk the leadoff hitter of an inning, but especially not when it’s the mercurial Jared Mitchell. His presence on the basepaths gave the Longhorns some heeby-jeebies and that was also where reliever Brandon Workman started to fray at the edges.

An RBI double by Mikie Mahtook put LSU ahead to stay at 5-4. A throwing error on Workman allowed Mahtook to advance to third, where Derek Helenihi knocked him in with a sacrifice fly to deep left. That two-run cushion grew to five when Blake Dean was beaned by Austin Wood with the bases loaded. It was the second consecutive beaning Wood issued in his first two at-bats.

Sean Ochinko provided the crushing blow when he knocked in a pair of runs on a single. The bloody cut had turned into a full on hemorrhage.

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KEY MOMENT:
When Wood went wild.
The Texas relief stud just wasn’t himself tonight, that was pretty obvious. Especially after plunking the first two guys he faced when he entered the game in that fateful 6th inning. After he gave up the big hit to Ochinko a batter later, that officially announced the party had started for the LSU fans in Rosenblatt, Baton Rouge, Dingerville, Nicholson Drive, hell all the way down to Bayou Lafourche, you name it.

KEY STAT:
7 of 11.
That’s the status of LSU’s two-out nightmare tonight. This Tiger team was clutch with a capital “UTCH”, scoring seven of their 11 runs in the game with two outs.

Jared Mitchell got it going early by slapping a bomb to right, that score three runs, all of which reached base after there were already two out. Then, in the difference-making 6th inning, three of those runs were scored with dueces wild.

Clutch man. Clutch. Just like a championship team should be.

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KEY STAT #2.
2-for-23.
That’s what Texas hitters went tonight with men on base. For the entire championship series, the Longhorn offense was just 8-for-53 with ducks on the pond. Aye!

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COACH MAINIERI GIVING THE STITCH-HEAD PROPS.
You guys are going to think I paid Paul Mainieri to mention the Stitch-head nation in the post-game press conference, but I swear I didn’t.

Instead, when I grabbed the microphone and asked a question, coach Mainieri had some flattering remarks about me that I really appreciated… though I don’t think his player gave a rat’s ass who I was. Thanks for the free pub coach.

Here’s the link where you can see the video of the press conference:

http://www.lsusports.net/newMediaPlayer/consolewmp.htm?CLIP_ID=415580&SPID=2173&type=vod&SPSID=27865&ATCLID=3755837&oemid=5200&CLIP_FILE_ID=426057&id=426057&DB_MENU_ID=&DB_OEM_ID=5200

(My question comes in about 10 or 11 minutes into the press conference. I can’t remember for sure.)

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KNOWING THE ANGLES.
In both the 3rd and 4th innings, right before the last pitch of the inning, I noticed Paul Mainieri made the perfect moves from the steps of the dugout. In the 3rd, he had moved his shortstop Austin Nola to his right a few steps. Next pitch, Brandon Loy hits a ball up the middle that Nola gobbles up and makes a diving fielder’s choice at second base. Then, in the 4th, he motioned to second baseman D.J. LeMahieu to move to his left a little as well. Next pitch, LeMahieu ranges over to his left and gathers a grounder, saving another hit.

Nice moves coach.

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THE RISE OF THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN COLLEGE BASEBALL PLAYERS.
As most of you know, ours is a very lilly-white sport for the most part. So it was refreshing to see two black college players play such a key role in their teams success tonight as LSU’s Jared Mitchell and UT’s Kevin Keyes both homered in the game.

Mitchell was named the CWS most valuable player, making him just the fourth African-American to win the award. Here are the three previous winners:

1973- Dave Winfield, P/OF, Minnesota
1998- Wes Rachels, 2B, USC
2001- Charlton Jimerson, OF, MIami.

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KYLE PETERSON BACK IN THE BOOTH?
Unfortunately, it hasn’t happened yet here at the CWS. I had a chance to talk to the ESPN sideline reporter (name drop, name drop) before today’s final game and told him if he didn’t want this “on the record” that’s okay. So I told him that there’s been a lot of chatter from about 2.5 million fans in college baseball about how he should be up in the press box doing the color commentary for these CWS games, instead of these guys that don’t pay attention to college baseball much during the regular season.

He was pretty p.c. about it all just saying, “Yeah, no word on anything like that yet. Though I’d love to be up there in the booth, nothing’s been talked about so far.”

But he DID tell me that his hunch is ESPN is going to do more for college baseball next season, especially in the form of Friday night games on ESPNU. He was basically saying that it’s a no-brainer for the sport to showcase Friday night games instead of those Sunday track meets that we saw so much of this year.

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STREAKS BROKEN.
- This year marks the first time since way back in 2003 that a national seed has finally won the College World Series. Rice was the last top-8 team to win it all.

- Even though the heart of the campus sits just about a mile and a half from the Mississippi River, LSU’s win means that a team EAST of the Mississippi River has now won the national title for the first time since 2001 (Miami).

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STREAKS CONTINUED
- The No. 1 national seed was Texas and their loss tonight means that the No. 1 overall seed still hasn’t won the title since Miami in 1999.

- For all those friends of mine who like to throw this one out, the SEC is now 0-for-20 in getting a national champion other than LSU. Georgia was the last non-LSU team in the SEC to win the title, in 1990.

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WEAK RECORD.
The NCAA says that the total CWS attendance was broken for second year in a row, with a total turnout of 336,076. But again, keep in mind, the reason attendance has been broken two years in a row is because from 2007 and before the NCAA had a couple double-headers for CWS play. But the last two years they have done away with DH’s and gone to single game sessions. So they have to clear the stadium between the 1pm and 6pm games now. That’s why you see large sections of open seats at CWS games yet the NCAA loves to brag that they are setting attendance records.

GOOD D. BAD PITCHING.
LSU’s .991 fielding percentage during the CWS is the second-best percentage for a national champion, trailing only the 1991 LSU team that fielded at a .993 pace. But the pitching is another story, LSU’s 4.18 ERA is the highest by a champion since Texas in 2002.