I haven’t written much about the LSU baseball team this year. I followed them throughout the year and knew how good they were and could be, so I guess I didn’t want to jinx them.
Well, the season is over and the Tigers are clearly, without a doubt, the best team in the land after claiming the school’s sixth national championship in the sport Wednesday, so it is safe to talk Tiger baseball, now.
I had the fortunate luck of being able to watch all three contests of the National Championship Series this week because it seemed like everyone else was watching them, too. Baseball games throughout Louisiana were either rescheduled are canceled because LSU was playing for the crown against Texas, no less, a program with six national titles.
Well, Texas, say hello to LSU, which moves into a tie for second with the Longhorns as the school with the most. USC’s 12 titles double both but it is LSU’s six titles in less than 20 years that makes a statement.
I remember LSU’s first crown in 1991 vividly. That team set a precedent that every national champion that followed upheld. As LSU football and basketball spiraled through up and down years, the team that brought the university’s first title in baseball started something that became routine. Chad Ogea, Gary Hymel, Lyle Mouton, Rick Greene, Tookie Johnson, Johnny Tellechea, Armando Rios and Andy Sheets will always be remembered as the first team of LSU baseball.
Over the next nine years the Tigers captured four more crowns with players like Todd Walker, Russ Johnson, Warren Morris, Jason Williams, Eddy Furniss, Brett Laxton, Mike Sirotka, Adrian Antonini, Mike Fontenot, Ryan Theriot, Brad Cresse and Brad Hawpe to name a few who became household names throughout Louisiana. Sometimes it took late game heroics by the likes of Morris and Cresse but one thing remained the same. The Tigers always thought they could win.
It would take the program another nine years to reach the pinnacle of college baseball again and like those before them, Louis Coleman, Jared Mitchell, Mikie Mahtook, Ryan Schimpf, DJ LeMahieu, Anthony Ranaudo, Derek Helenihi, Austin Nola, Micah Gibbs, Sean Ochinko and Matty Ott have become household names because they, too, always believed they could win.
Although these Tigers didn’t break a barrier like LSU’s first national champion in baseball did, it is hard not to place them on the same podium because it had been so long since LSU won their last championship.
And I think that is why this year’s National Championship Series was so special. It was the first title for head coach Paul Mainieri after Skip Bertman produced the first five and the first for the the Tigers in the new three-game format.
Not only did these Tigers believe they could win, they sure did a lot of it along the way to the title proving that they are simply the most complete and talented team in the land.
