Put on the Rally Caps! He Found College Baseball

Stormy week ending. Surrounded by Super Bowl foolishness. Suffocated by Rodman. Sick of TV showing nonstop Wake Forest basketball, more Wake Forest than “Matlock.”

Climb in the car. Drive south through the city. Past scowling faces, hunched shoulders, seems like everyone is sick and surrounded.

Make a right turn, hear the clacking of cleats on concrete. Smell an old bag of popcorn. Feel sunshine.

Find baseball.

One month before the start of major league spring training. One month after Christmas Eve. Two days before the final NFL Sunday.

Friday afternoon, and the USC Trojans are playing a regular-season game.

Grumbling umpires and whistling fastballs and spit-stained dirt.

Reserve infielders chattering, overweight coaches catching grounders in their caps.

Country music, that wonderful accompaniment for our last rural game, blaring on the loudspeakers.

“Sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug.”

The first Southland game of the 1997 season, in the third week of 1997.

I rush the field to personally thank each and every one.

“This is great, isn’t it,” pitcher Randy Flores says. “Everything is so . . . bright.”

The earliest start in school history, and not soon enough.

The city is depressed by the potential sale of the Dodgers, confused by the makeup of the Angels.

Too early to get too excited about the Lakers. Too late for excitement about the Kings.

The timing is perfect at 3:01 p.m. when Flores throws the season’s first pitch to Anthony Najera of Cal State Los Angeles.

Najera slides the bat up in his hands and squares and . . .

The entire USC team jumps up in the dugout and shouts, “Bunt!”

As though they have been waiting on that pitch for eight months.

Which they have.

“I was, um, out hitting on Christmas Day,” says Trojan third baseman Morgan Ensberg of Hermosa Beach. “My parents weren’t extremely happy about it, but we had about an hour between the breakfast and family lunch . . . and well, this is like my life.”

In no other collegiate team sport do players openly have more fun than in baseball.

With less than one scholarship available for every three athletes, many are playing simply for the rush.

It’s the only place in baseball where the pitcher is congratulated by the entire team after every inning. Where some guys spend their careers as dugout cheerleaders.

It was only the second inning of the first of more than 60 games Friday, and already several Trojans were dancing to the between-innings music.

“This is a big reason I came here,” says Eric Munson, a freshman catcher who turned down the big money that would have come with being the 62nd overall pick, by the Atlanta Braves, last year. “I wanted to experience college life, live away from home in these conditions.”

This year should be even more fun for the nationally third-ranked Trojans, who have the heart of a pitching staff and infield returning from a team that fell one game short of the College World Series last year.

They may not even be the best team in town.

This column easily could have been about UCLA, but the Bruins were busy Friday scoring about 100 runs in Hawaii.

UCLA, ranked second nationally in one poll, should join USC in the College World Series, which is surprisingly big news.

Even though the school regularly produces more major leaguers than any other university, it has been to the College World Series only once, in 1969.

Gary Adams, in his 22 years as UCLA coach, has never been.

The Bruins have a potential No. 1 overall draft pick--third baseman Troy Glaus, who had two homers in the first two games.

In all, they have eight returning starters from a team that also finished one game short of Omaha last year.

Cal State Fullerton is a top-20 team again this year despite the departure of fabled Coach Augie Garrido to Texas. So are Long Beach State and Pepperdine.

Who knows, things could get so crazy that a local coach could order a pitcher to throw at an opponent, admit he gave the order, then suspend himself for giving the order.

Nah.

Wes Rachels, the first batter for USC on Friday, homers on the third pitch he sees.

“His first homer of the year!” calls the beaming public-address announcer.

By the time the doubleheader ends, more than 500 people have wandered through Dedeaux Field and the Trojans have outscored their city cousins, 25-5.

Next weekend, powerful Arizona State comes to town for the first conference showdown, top ticket $4.

“We’re going to make some serious noise,” Ensberg says.

Already have.

First inning, buy a hot dog the size of an ink pen. Cost: $2.50.

So upset, five minutes later, buy another.

No problem explaining it on expense report. Two words. Found baseball.