June 19, 2007

Gods couldn't favor both O.C. teams
Fullerton bows, UCI looks to be 'Cinderella'
FRANK MICKADEIT

OMAHA– Maybe they should have tried human sacrifice.

Cal State Fullerton boosters – having watched their team held to two runs Saturday – resorted to an elaborate "bat ceremony" yesterday morning before the game against UCI. Over behind the Titan House I watched Matt Helm ('63-'64) perform a ritual part-Haitian voodoo and part-Hollywood to try to wake up the dormant Titan bats. Following a script close to that of the 1989 movie "Major League," Helm rubbed a (dead) chicken on a bat and poured hot sauce on it. Then he lit incense and placed a Cuban cigar and a shot of rum at the altar of " Jobu," a small primitive-looking statue that had been draped in an orange Titan towel.

"Jo-bu! Jo-bu! Jo-bu!" dozens of Fullerton fans chanted.

Well, we know what happened. About eight hours later, after the longest game in College World Series history, I was with those very same Fullerton fans in that very same back yard passing around that very same bottle of rum. If not human sacrifice, maybe Jobu wanted at least a live chicken.

I was sad for Fullerton. But this might be UCI's Cinderella year, and if one team had to lose yesterday, well …

Walking down 13th Street across from the stadium after the game, I first came to the Eater Nation house, where UCI boosters decked out in blue and gold were starting to celebrate under the shade trees on one of those glorious Midwest summer evenings. But they'll still be here to write about at least until Wednesday, so I kept walking until I reached the Titan House. Or, as one of the many blue-and-orange banners that festoon its exterior reads, "Cal State Omaha." It's true – they have as much claim to Omaha as any Division 1 school.

Back at the BBQ grill was Milt Bower of Newport Beach, also a member of those Titan teams of the early '60s. "I cook," he told me. "My payback to the team." About a half-hour after the last out, Titan ballplayers, still in their dirty uniforms, started making their way down the driveway into the back yard. They arrived in clumps of twos and threes, No. 32, Paul Canedo, No. 5, Jon White, No. 1, Corey Jones. With each new arrival the 150 or so fans clapped and cheered. The guys slowly walked over to the grill, where Bower piled their plates with steak, chicken and ribs. They're man-sized ballplayers, but there's still some Little Leaguer in the way they take a tough loss.

I sought out two players who made a tremendous play at the end of the game – almost saved it for the Titans, really. Left fielder Josh Fellhauer scooped up a hard liner and fired it about 275 feet to catcher John Curtis, who tagged the Anteater runner charging home for the would-be winning run. The classic bang-bang play. When perfectly executed, it's as close to poetry as anything in sport. You practice it all the time, but to give you a sense of how rarely you execute it for real, Curtis told me it's only happened five or six times this year, and only once before with Fellhauer. I just wanted to tell them, "Great play."

"I've played it in my head a bunch of times," Fellhauer told me. He's a freshman, so we'll get to see him next year. A week from now, though, Curtis, the big left hand hitting catcher, will be playing for the Chicago White Sox farm club in Montana. He's one of those guys whose name I'll track in the sports page agate.

Omaha loves to "adopt" an underdog and try to root it into the championship game. UCI is primed for that role this year. I know I've seen a lot more people wearing UCI apparel than actually traveled from O.C. Of the eight teams here, however, UCI apparel is the hardest to come by. Most of the souvenir stands near Rosenblatt Stadium carry the dark blue hat with the embroidered gold "UCI," but not all. You can find a game jersey that says "Anteaters," but impossible to find is the coveted jersey that simply says "Eaters."

By sucking up to one of the UCI publicists, I was able to buy the best T-shirt I saw in Omaha, one of only about 20 she brought out. It features an illustration of the elongated anteater head and the warning "Fear the Snout." I wore it proudly on Sunday, both to the ballpark, around town and even across the river to Council Bluffs, Iowa, where Kirk and I took in the 10:55 p.m. showing of "Ocean's 13." The kid in the ticket booth was way impressed, but I got strange looks from other folks. But if Jobu the Baseball God shines upon us by this time next week, the whole country will know – and fear – The Snout.