SPORTS WATCH : College Champs

Once again, Southern California has given the baseball world two participants in the College World Series national championship game.

Hearty congratulations to the winning Titans from Cal State Fullerton, the nation’s No. 1-ranked team. In this terrific display of deep baseball talent from the region, it was a pity that somebody had to lose. But the USC Trojans, with 11 national championships, gave a very good accounting in the tournament and in the losing cause.

The Titans’ All-American Mark Kotsay was no surprise as the tournament’s outstanding player, and is an authentic Tom Terrific. He hit with power, roamed center field, and yes, in this age of the specialist, closed out the game as a relief pitcher. He and his fellow players showed, as the college game can, how baseball retains its hold on our imagination with its displays of enthusiasm, team spirit and versatility. This despite all the labor troubles at the major league level of recent years.

The serene and wise winning coach, Augie Garrido, a real-life manager for the Field of Dreams, told his players, before they gave him yet another national championship, just to go out and have fun. After the game, he spoke eloquently on national TV about not fencing promising young men in, but instead guiding them and allowing them to realize their own potential.

Now if we can only bottle that sort of enormously successful adult mentorship and export it to all of American life. No wonder baseball at its finest moments cheers and inspires us so.