Touching Bases With Fullerton’s Heroes : Celebration: Fans and family turn out to greet the college baseball champions. The players’ reaction? ‘This is what it’s all about.’

For the College World Series champion Titans of Cal State Fullerton and about 800 friends and family members, Sunday was a day of celebration.

It was also a day to be a little ridiculous.

When the team emerged from its plane at John Wayne Airport shortly after noon, players walked into a victory celebration that included cheerleaders, an elephant and people wearing orange and blue pompon wigs.

In case anyone missed the point, players and fans drove to the university’s Titan Stadium motorcade-style for another victory celebration an hour later.

“I didn’t expect it to be like this,” said catcher Brian Loyd, as he signed baseballs and newspaper photos of himself at the airport. “I figured there would be a few news cameras.”

But he added: “This is what it’s all about.”

The Titans earned their two victory celebrations by defeating USC, 11-5, in the title game of the College World Series on Saturday in Omaha, Neb.

Among the highlights of the game was Mark Kotsay’s two home runs in the first two innings that drove in five runs. He was named the tournament’s outstanding player.

It was Fullerton’s third College World Series win, the others having come in 1979 and 1984.

“This is not the most gifted team in the world,” said Coach Augie Garrido, who received some of the loudest applause of the day. “It is a team that has worked hard.”

Before the season began, Garrido had said he expected this to be a rebuilding year--championships would come later. But on Sunday he credited the College World Series victory to the team’s attitude and strong work ethic, traits that took the team to Omaha and returned them as hometown heroes.

*

About 100 “non-heroes”--the other passengers on American Airlines Flight 1973--deplaned before the Titans and got to walk through a 50-foot-long gantlet of fans, including cheerleaders and Tuffy Titan, the school’s elephant mascot.

The dress code included plenty of College World Series T-shirts emblazoned with Cal State Fullerton. Some fans tucked blue and orange pompons under baseball caps, causing the school colors to stream down their faces.

The added bonus of having Fullerton defeat USC was not lost on local fans, including USC graduate and state Sen. John R. Lewis (R-Orange), who greeted the Titans at the airport. “If anyone can say” congratulations, Lewis said, “I can.” The crowd responded by booing.

Also on hand was Gaddi H. Vasquez, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, who recalled popping in and out of a meeting Saturday to check the score of the championship game.

After victory speeches by Garrido and college officials at the airport, players and fans drove to Titan Stadium. The players arrived amid blazing sirens and horns, their chartered bus flanked by two police motorcycles, two police cars and a fire engine. The airport crowd of 200 had swelled to 800.

Leslie Williams-Frazer, who works in the university’s office of student life, sang the national anthem. A number of school officials and local politicians congratulated the players. Again.

The players ended the celebration by climbing aboard the fire engine and posing for photos.

Today the team is scheduled to participate in a ticker-tape parade along Disneyland’s Main Street.

Just about the only person in Fullerton with any regrets about the Titan victory was T-shirt vendor Mark Kirby, 25, who had set up shop in the parking lot of Titan Stadium.

Kirby was selling white T-shirts for $8. The shirts said, generically, College World Series. The words Titan or Fullerton were not to be found.

Noted Kirby: “I should have [printed] Titans on all of them.”