The crowd reacts as the Titans make a score during the super regional action

That's All She Wrote

Titans Advance to College World Series

June 12, 2007

By Nancy Snow

Tommy Lasorda is looking for a seat. That’s right. The former Dodgers manager and Fullerton resident is now just five seats away from me in press row. He looks good. I mean Slim Fast good. Long before Anna Nicole Smith chirped, “Trim Spa, baby,” we had Tommy telling us, “If I can do it, you can do it.”

Tommy Lasorda joins the crowd as Cal State Fullerton played UCLA on Saturday, June 9.

That message must have gotten through to the Titans as they punched their ticket to Omaha by beating UCLA 2-1 Sunday night to advance to the College World’s Series in Omaha, Nebraska.
 
I’m a university professor by profession but a sports nut by the grace of having been born into a family with a 5:2 male-to-female ratio. I grew up tripping over bats, gloves and protective cups, the latter which I thought were ash trays at first glance. My four older brothers played varsity basketball, baseball, football and golf, and Dad coached them all in Little League.

Titan Chris Jones takes a mighty swing during the June 9 game against UCLA. The Titans are now headed on their 15th trip to the College World Series.

Girls generally weren’t as actively involved in organized youth sports as boys. I did manage a go-round with “Miss Softball America” and another season with the girl’s basketball team. By senior year in high school, I was on the girls’ varsity tennis team just two years after picking up a racket for the first time.
 
Title IX changed a lot of the landscape to allow women to compete in athletics and academics at the same level as men. No one today blinks an eye at female student-athletes or even the women’s pro sports. Now at least I get to enjoy playing a little recreational tennis and watching college sports, my favorite eye-candy entertainment.
 
The Road to Omaha via Fullerton did not disappoint. 

Merilyn and Jerry Goodwin, the namesakes of Goodwin Field, take in the action during the Saturday, June 9, Titans vs. Bruins regional baseball playoffs.

Game One on Saturday afternoon was a slugfest. The ace junior pitcher for the Titans, Wes Roemer, was his usual laid-back self (I’m being facetious) and while the Bruins did get eight hits off of him, they were only able to draw a line from RISP to home two times. The Titans crossed the plate a hearty 12. This Titan fan was like a pig at the trough with every crack of the bat. More, more! 
 
I love a game where the balls must look like watermelons. Especially when they appear that way to our players and they can capitalize by making fruit salad by bringing guys home.
 
Game Two at 7 p.m. Sunday was a beautiful contrast — a pitchers’ duel and our guy won. Trouble is, I’m not sure what happened to my fingernails along the way, so nerve-wracking this game was in comparison to the all-you-can-hit antics of Game One.

Sandra Sutphen, emerita professor of political science and a long-time Titan sports fan, and her husband, Roger Albers look toward the camera during the action on Saturday, June 9.

Game Two was much colder. Note to self. It gets much cooler in the evening in Southern California, dramatically cooler. I wasn’t prepared for the chill down and admit that I watched the last few innings from my living room. Next year I’ll wear my CSUF hooded sweatshirt.  
 
Something that every Titan fan understood over the weekend is that this season was an improbable. This Titan men’s team wasn’t expected to advance. They stumbled into the post-season with an at-large bid and no one was talking about them. They surprised us by shining in the San Diego regional. Their super regional match-up with UCLA in Fullerton made us nervous all over again.

UCLA has the intimidation factor wherever it goes. It leads the nation with 100 national championships, 70 for men, 30 for the women. Many of those on the women’s side are for their women’s softball program, considered one of the best in the nation. This year the UCLA women’s softball team got beat by Loyola Marymount University and didn’t advance beyond the regional. The men were expected to go much deeper into the post-season. 
 
UCLA had blasted its way through the regional in Long Beach, ousting the expected victor and host, Long Beach State. Is this any way to treat guests in their home? I’m glad they learned some manners by the time they got to Fullerton.

Alumnus James D. Woods (B.A. business administration) and his wife, Jeanette, join Anil Puri, dean of the College of Business and Economics, and his wife, Sharon, during the action during the College World Series regional action at CSUF.

Wes Roemer helped a lot by striking out seven and stranding nine runners on bases in Game One and Jeff Kaplan contributed royally to the sweep with just one unearned run and six strikeouts in six and two-third innings.

Cal State Fullerton boasts 12 national championships, four in men’s baseball and one in women’s softball among the list. This trip to Omaha will be the Titans’ 15th trip to the College World Series, which places them seventh in all-time appearances alongside Stanford and Arizona. Their first CWS opponent is Oregon State, defending national champion.  My fingernails are primed and ready.  
 
Memories from this year’s Super Regional in Fullerton include sitting behind the big guy with the T-shirt that read, “Old Guys’ Rule: High Mileage, Low Maintenance,” which he seemed true to, being tempted but not submitting to junk food heaven (red vines, waffle cakes, shaved ice, cheesesteaks), and enjoying a lot of ’80s hits between innings like “Rio” by Duran Duran.