REPORTING FROM ...
THE COLLEGE WORLD SERIES

Ryan McGee

Like War of the Worlds sans that insufferable Dakota Fanning.

June 19, 6:27 p.m.—As we sit in the rain here at Rosenblatt, with tonight's UNC-LSU elimination game postponed to Friday (you should have seen the storm that rolled in during the first inning, it looked like the first 15 minutes of War of the Worlds), let's take time to give out a few superlatives from the first seven days of the 2008 College World Series:

Best Freebie
Free bottles of water inscribed with a little bit of scripture given out by a local church group. It's lovingly referred to by the masses as "Holy Water".

Best Voice Mail
Former LSU coach (and outgoing AD) Skip Bertman, who suffered a mild heart attack just three weeks ago, left current skipper Paul Mainieri a message saying that, after the comeback, his cardiologist said he can't watch anymore games. "He was joking," Maineiri said before tonight's game. "But I thought he was serious."

Worst Voice Mail
The over-served gentleman who left a message on my phone at the Omaha Airport Sleep Inn … at 3:00 a.m. ("Dude, come down here and get me … [click]")

Best Apparel
Upstart Fresno State fans dressed in their "From Underdog to Wonderdog" apparel, clearly made at the last minute by some smart SoCal entrepreneur.

Ryan McGee

Stanford's voodoo bat: "Is very bad to steal Jobu's rum … very bad."

Worst Apparel
Miami in all-white uniforms vs. Georgia in white pants, hats, and helmets. Everyone looked like they were going to a P. Diddy party in the Hamptons.

Best Bat
Stanford's "voodoo bat." After dropping their first game in the regionals, the Cardinal has taped this bat, complete with a face and dreads made of athletic tape, onto the wall of the dugout before every game.

Worst Bat
Bulldog right fielder Matt Olson's. It's white, and looks like Gandalf the Great's magic staff.

Best Quote
71-year Rice head coach Wayne Graham on how difficult it is to reach Omaha: "You feel like a vampire got a hold of you and left you with just enough blood to live."

Next Best Quote
A Stanford player who is in town, but not included on the team's 25-man postseason roster, pleading with the school's Sports Information Director. "Man, you have got to get my name at least back on the roster on the website. This is totally killing my ability to meet girls."

Best Unintelligible Quote
LSU and Orioles pitcher Ben McDonald, who I saw in the press box watching the Braves on Sunday Night Baseball I asked him what he thought of the amazing season that Chipper Jones is having. He rattled off a lengthy Cajun soliloquy that sounded like the crazy assistant coach from The Waterboy, then slapped me on the shoulder and walked off.

Best Non-Baseball Coach Cameo
UNC's Roy Williams, in town to support the Heels, was seen standing in line at Zesto's, the legendary hamburger joint across the street from The Blatt.

Best Practice Field
East Bellevue High School in nearby Bellevue, NE. "Dude," said one Fresno player, "If my high school field had been this nice I wouldn't have had a single error my senior year." How many did you have? "21 … it was a bad field."

Worst Practice Field
Creighton University. It comes complete with three different kinds of artificial turf and the infield dirt is painted on. Most teams chose to take BP in the indoor batting cages instead.

Best Game
LSU-Rice on June 17. The Tigers was trailing by four runs in the bottom of the ninth and two outs from elimination, then staged a rally for the ages by coming back to send the Owls packing 6-5.

Worst Game
Wake me up when the Fresno-Florida State matchup is over. What? It ended last Sunday?

Guy We'll Most Likely See in the Majors
Catchers Jason Castro (Stanford) and Buster Posey (Florida State) will get there quickly. But Miami first baseman Yonder Alonso already has the Reds, who took him with the 7th pick in the draft, planning a big welcome celebration with fellow Cuban native Tony Perez.

Guy We'll Most Likely See in a Bowl Game
Stanford OF Toby Gerhart, who only played one game at running back for the Cardinal last fall thanks to injuries. But in that one game, he hung 140 yards and a TD on San Jose State. He's slated to be the #1 TB for Jim Harbaugh this fall. Some free advice to catchers: Don't block the plate.

There are good statues, and then there's this.

Best Statue
"Road To Omaha" greets all fans as they walk up the park, and has become the signature vision of the College World Series, immortalizing the famous champion's dog pile.

Worst Statue
"First Place" is a more impressionistic piece that looks like an aluminum balloon animal whiffing on a pitch in the dirt.

Best Reason to Build a New Ballpark in 2011
The world's slowest elevator. The joke among media and staff members is that the press box at Rosenblatt is 75 stories tall. "It has to be," said a writer from Stanford, "Because it takes five minutes to ride up here." (Oh, and one more reason: During Thursday night's rainstorm, some sections of the grandstand filled up like a state fair dunking booth.)

Worst Reason to Build a New Ballpark in 2011
Everything else.

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