OMAHA, Neb.. – So Big Blue Nation, what do you think of Omaha so far? You should know, it’s not always like that.
Another day, another firecracker ends in a Men’s College World Series that, so far, is a blast of drama. This time it would be the Kentucky Wildcats, those rookies from Omaha, who would throw themselves into each other’s arms on the field, while the North Carolina State Wolfpack trudged away as the third stunned victim in barely 24 hours.
Three matches, three victories. The MCWS has been around since Harry Truman was in the White House and has never seen anything like it.
But for Kentucky to debut something to remember, cherish and pattern through 2024, everything had to be in place. Especially with North Carolina State leading 4-3 in the bottom of the ninth inning.
The Kentucky center fielder, who had been picked off for a pinch runner, sat in the dugout with a tower of rally caps on his head, the team’s designated symbol of hope. “I’ve never done a hat pile before, but they said we needed a little mojo and I put them on,” Nolan McCarthy would later say. How many hats? “I heard 24.”
The second baseman had locked himself in the bathroom at the end of the tunnel. Why Emilien Pitre was so sequestered – “I was just sitting there on the toilet, waiting for applause,” he later said – we’ll get to that in a moment.
Wildcats assistant coach Nick Ammirati had gathered the hitters for an impromptu pep talk. “Ammo brought us together and he said: this is why we play. Let’s have fun, let’s do this,” said Mitchell Daly, destined to be the man of the moment. “The whole message throughout the day, from Coach Ming (Nick Mingione) and the rest of the coaching staff, was don’t try to do more. Just keep being us.
With all this karma in their favor, how could the Wildcats fail? So the first official day a Kentucky baseball team ever spent at MCWS turned into an epic hello. Ryan Nicholson went the other way with a homer in the ninth to tie the game, then Daly hit a homer to left field in the 10th, a moment so powerful that manager Nick Mingione had to kneel in the box. practice at third, waiting for Daly to trot. towards the house where his frenzied teammates were waiting for him.
“Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better,” Mingione later told the media. Indeed, the third match of the CWS 2024 ended like the other two, but requiring an additional round. Only playoff wins will do the trick so far in Omaha. “I feel like I’m going to pass out,” Daly said after his winner.
Yes, the Wildcats are a story that just keeps getting better.
Attention Omaha residents. Now that you’ve seen the magical spectacle that is Kentucky baseball, have you given your heart to the Wildcats, as their coach so ardently requested?
You neutrals, out there in the parking lots, with no dogs in the fight and just here to watch the College World Series, no matter who’s in it, flying the flags of Iowa and LSU, Nebraska and Oklahoma State and LSU at your tailgate parties. Have you joined Big Blue Nation since Mingione invited you all?
He spoke at his pre-series press conference on Thursday and delivered his plea.
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“If the people of Omaha are looking for a team to root for, this is your team. We are the beginners. We want to have a great experience. We want to be elevated. I saw this city and I saw the people of this place raise opposing teams. I looked at this thing over and over again. If they’re looking for a team that competes at the highest level and has an awesome time doing it, we’d love for you to come on board. There are so many seats on the Kentucky train.
Apparently Omaha was paying attention. In any case, a municipal department, as Mingione reported on Saturday. “We get an email from the local fire department: ‘Hey, I heard one of your players is called Firefighter. We made you a fireman’s helmet.'”
So as the Wildcats dugout looked to return in the ninth inning Saturday, one of them was wearing a fire helmet.
“It’s awesome,” Mingione said. “People actually listened.”
Did you know that this was the first time in 47 years that a team had to go into extra innings in its very first MCWS game, and the first time in 49 years since winning such a thing? Or that before Saturday afternoon, teams entering the ninth inning with a lead were 176-9 in the last 185 games? Or that Tennessee and Kentucky were the only SEC teams without a win all season, but both accomplished it within 20 hours of each other?
Or did this Saturday’s game-winning outburst come from the son of a four-star Army general who moved eight times as a child? The irony is that the man who led Kentucky into the MCWS record book for the first time has played here before. Daly went 4 of 16 here in 2021 as a Texas Longhorn.
So there’s one intriguing curveball after another in the Wildcats’ journey.
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This for example. The national narrative on Kentucky has been how the Wildcats thrive on small ball. Bunt, fly, scratch tracks. As of Saturday, the eight teams in attendance this week were Nos. 1, 4, 5, 7, 11, 16, 33 and were tied for 69th nationally in home runs. Guess which one was Kentucky. Sure, No. 69, 15 homers behind second-lowest North Carolina State and 91 behind Tennessee.
So how can the Wildcats win their first-ever World Series game on Saturday? They managed three circuits, even with a strong wind. So much for the little ball.
“People may call us small-ball, but that’s just one piece of the puzzle. A lot of teams don’t have that piece in their puzzle,” Nicholson said. “The long ball has never been part of our game. It’s part of everyone’s game.
“We do what the game asks.”
McCarthy said: “We know what we can do. We can attack anyone with anything.
That’s the whole idea, as Mingione confirmed. “You’ve heard me say it time and time again, we’re an attack-at-all-costs type and I thought today showed that. Bunts, home runs, hits, walks, etc.
You can’t make up what happens in the Kentucky shelter in times of crisis. Stacking hats, wearing Spider-Man costumes. . . and now an Omaha fire helmet. Everything to attract a smile from destiny. Look what happened to Pitre. He rushed down the tunnel to go to the bathroom in the ninth inning. Let him go from there.
“I was there when Ryan hit his home run. I had no idea. I heard people screaming. I came out and the guys were partying and I said, what just happened? They said you need to go back to the bathroom. so I spent the rest of the ninth inning in the bathroom.
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Unfortunately, the Wildcats didn’t score again, and when Daly went to the plate in the 10th, Pitre was in the dugout. It was left to McCarthy and his pile of hats to do the work. “I didn’t know it was a home run,” he said of Daly. “I saw the ball go up, I saw everyone running out, so I threw the hats down and ran out with them.”
But if Kentucky needed a late rally in the next game, “If I have to do it, I’ll go there,” Pitre said of his bathroom plans. “It encompasses the way we think and how we do things,” Nicholson said.
Before this weekend, 117 different schools had participated in the Men’s College World Series. Tufts has been there. Oral Roberts. Stoney Creek. Colgate, Kent State, James Madison, Harvard and Princeton, Rider and Rollins, Delaware and Dartmouth, Western Michigan and Eastern Michigan. Maine to the East and Hawaii to the West. The Citadel has never seen the NCAA men’s basketball tournament but has seen Omaha.
But never in Kentucky. Not until Saturday afternoon. No wonder the unbridled joy of the masses in the stands, who had to trade March for June for glory. The Kentucky baseball team has won five more games in the NCAA tournament in the last two weeks than the Kentucky basketball team has won in the last four years. Twenty minutes after the match, a voice crackled on the radios to everyone in the stadium. “We’re having a hard time getting Kentucky fans to leave,” someone announced.
Naturally, they wanted to savor the moment. But what’s next for an already classic College World Series that has seen seven runs scored in the ninth inning in three games? What’s next for newcomers to town?
“This game is a really good starting point and a great confidence-builder for the future,” Nicholson said. “We didn’t come here just to be happy to be here. We came here to win games.
Not all of them will necessarily have to be walkouts. Will they?