The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
NCAA CWS chronicles: The shot in the dark
06.22.2005 | Baseball
OMAHA, Neb. -- Augie Garrido sat in the holding area, waiting with four of his players for the Longhorns' press conference following their dramatic 4-3 victory over Baylor on Wednesday evening.
"This," he said, "is why it is hard on you guys to play at Texas. This is the picture I see ... this moment. This is what we work for from the start of practice. Other teams may be content to win games, but for you guys, this is what we play for."
"This" marks the third time in four years that the Longhorns have advanced to the finals of the College World Series.
Garrido looked at the four players with him in the room - junior Taylor Teagarden, sophomores Drew Stubbs and Chance Wheeless and freshman pitcher Kenn Kasparek.
"It takes all of you," he said. "Everyone on this team plays a part. It is your team, and you make of it what you will. The picture I see is being here, where we are right now."
Garrido, the winningest coach in the history of the collegiate game, has led teams to four national championships in each of the last four decades. But even this remarkable Longhorns run is a first for him. Texas won this tournament in 2002, finished second last year, and will finish no worse that second this season.
Not since the Longhorns won it in 1983 and finished second in 1984 and 1985 has Texas had such a run.
"I just thought about the chance we have," Teagarden said reflectively. "It is pretty incredible to realize we have another opportunity for the title."
As the players and Garrido talked, Baylor was finishing its part of the postgame press conference. It was a bitter pill for the Bears, who had done everything they could do to win not only the game, but the tournament. Everything, that is, except have the last at bat.
UT had a cushion going into this game, since the Longhorns were unbeaten in the double-elimination tournament. The Bears, on the other hand, had to win to force another semifinal contest. If you wanted a game where the Big 12 made a statement about both pride and excellence, this was it.
Both teams got outstanding pitching and great defense. Both made errors and each capitalized on those mistakes for runs. In fact, the game was so even, the teams had matched solo home runs, as Josh Ford had tied the game at 1-1 with a home run in the fourth and Teagarden regained the lead in the fifth with his own solo round-tripper.
The battle between McCormick and Teagarden was a classic showdown of two guys who probably will play at the Major League level some day.
"He had thrown me two balls," Teagarden said. "I knew he wouldn't want to walk me as the leadoff man, so I figured he would throw a fast ball."
The pitch came in somewhere around 92 miles per hour and left just as fast. Teagarden drove the ball into the power alley in right center, and when it landed in the bleachers, Texas was ahead, 2-1.
At Rosenblatt Stadium, there is a brief window of time when the sun drops behind the grandstands down the third-base line. For no more than 10 minutes, the ball of sun sits right above the edge of the stands, and the first baseman cannot see as he looks toward third base. So bad is the condition that pitchers are instructed to not attempt pick offs at first base during that time.
It was in that space that Baylor got its lead. A single by Kevin Russo in the seventh inning, only the fourth hit off Kasparek, placed a runner at first. And when Seth Fortenberry bunted back to the mound, Kasparek fielded the ball and threw to first, where Wheeless was blinded by the sun.
By the time Nick Peoples ran the ball down in the Baylor bullpen, the Bears had tied the game and Fortenberry was at third. Pinch-hitter Kevin Sevigny then singled him home to face the Longhorns with their first deficit of the tournament. It was 3-2 in favor of Baylor.
Drew Stubbs, who had struggled at the bat throughout the series, was at the plate when LaMotta tried to pick off Peoples at first and the ball got away. Despite slipping down as he headed for second, Peoples made a gutsy decision to go on to third, sliding in just under the tag and hugging the base as he slid past it.
On the next pitch, Stubbs lifted a fly ball to right field. Peoples tagged and came home. Although he collided with Ford and the ball rolled free, he crawled back to touch the plate. As it turned out, he didn't need to. The home plate umpire ruled that Ford was guilty of obstruction, since he was standing in the baseline without the ball. The run tied the score at 3-3.
Earlier in the seventh, even with the Longhorns behind, 3-2, Garrido rolled the dice and went to his closer, J. Brent Cox. When Cox entered the game, it was his 11th appearance in Omaha - a CWS record.
"I felt like we were going to score," Garrido said, "and J. Brent has been such a vital part of this team, I wanted him out there. The players believe in him and I felt like that would help motivate them."
Cox was masterful, coaxing a double play to end the seventh and retiring the side in order in the eighth. Still, in the ninth, it took one of those fabulous defensive plays that have become the Longhorns' trademark here to beat the Bears. This time, with runners on first and second and one out, it was Stubbs, who made a diving catch of a sinking liner.
The baserunner, Reid Brees, was so sure the ball would drop rounded third for home, trying to score the go-ahead run. He was easily doubled off to end the inning.
That took the game to the bottom of the ninth.
Monday night, Wheeless threw his shoulder out of socket in a painful swing. He received treatment for two days, but when he tried to hit the ball to the opposite field against the hard-throwing McCormick, in the sixth inning, the shoulder popped out again. Wheeless crumpled in pain at the plate.
Now, Wheeless was scheduled to lead off the ninth. Garrido decided to pinch-hit Clay Van Hook.
"I'm going to pinch hit Hook," he told Wheeless, but Chance protested.
"Coach," he said. "I hit this guy (LaMotta) really well."
"But your shoulder," Augie said.
"Coach, I hit him really well," Chance repeated.
On the first swing at a change-up, Wheeless barely got around. In the press box, there were murmurs, "gosh, he can't even swing the bat."
In his time as a first base coach at Texas this season, Greg Swindell has never turned his back on a play.
LaMotta's next pitch was a fastball, and Wheeless swung. Into the Omaha night, toward the Henry Doorly Zoo far beyond the right-field bleachers, the ball rose. In the Texas dugout, Garrido hoped that it would stay fair. Swindell, who played two years at Rosenblatt Stadium as a Longhorn in 1984 and 1985, knew the wind was blowing toward left.
For the first time, Greg Swindell turned away from the ball and high-fived Wheeless as he came to first base. The ball landed 10 feet fair, about nine rows up in the stands beyond the right field wall.
Dreams die hard in Omaha, and so it was with Baylor. The Bears had fought as valiantly as any team in this tournament, eliminating both Oregon State and Tulane as it tried to fight back from Texas' opening win on Saturday.
Garrido found it ironic that when he decided to let Wheeless hit, he had some questions from some of his comrades in the Texas dugout.
"He's got a bad shoulder," came the comment. "He can barely swing the bat."
To which Garrido replied, "look, every baseball coach in America yells at his kids that 'we need somebody to step up,' Now, here's a guy who wants to be a hero, and I'm going to let him."
In the end, the victory was about Wheeless' dramatic home run, but it was far more than that. It was Stubbs' brilliant catches, it was Teagarden's home run, it was Nick Peoples living up to his nickname "dirt bag" (it will take a quart of soap to clean his uniform), it was Kasparek and Cox and all the rest.
From the 25 players on the postseason roster to the members of the team who can't make the trip to the managers and the trainers, all of them contributed in some way to that home run that sailed into the night.
It was, after all, the picture that Augie sees - Rosenblatt Stadium, playing for the National Championship ... one more time.
