Price of Success Just Got Higher for the Titans

Cal State Fullerton’s College World Series victory was so new, Mark Kotsay’s second home run hadn’t stopped rolling yet. So new, the Augie Garridomobile was tearing up the Rosenblatt Stadium turf like the pace car at Indy, buzzing from well-wisher to back-slapper to photo op to anyone in Omaha holding a microphone.

After finally catching up with Garrido, and toweling off, I asked him what this all meant to the school--four nationally televised victories, three of them routs of Tennessee and USC, a third NCAA championship and a CBS commentator actually describing USC as “the underdog to Cal State Fullerton today.”

Garrido’s eyes widened and although the scooter stayed put, the rest of him immediately shifted into first gear.

“I think it gives the university the opportunity to make some choices,” Garrido replied.

“Do you want to keep this thing going?

“Here’s what you get when you do it all.”

Garrido wasn’t talking about pitching, hitting and defense. He was talking about seating capacity, concession stands and locker rooms--still missing at his field of unfinished dreams, the skeletal Titan baseball complex that should have a plaque that reads, “Here Sits One Fine Idea Whose Time Had Come, But Then The Money Ran Out.”

Opened in 1992 but never completed, Titan Field is an ever-present reminder that the kings of college baseball live double lives--royalty in Omaha but paupers back home.

Titan baseball doesn’t get the media coverage it deserves, but maybe it would if Titan Field had a place where the media could work, such as an actual press box.

Titan baseball doesn’t have the fan support it deserves, but maybe it would if Titan Field had a place to feed the fans and a place to relieve them, instead of a couple slap-dash concession tables and a few stray plastic port-a-johns.

Most of all, Titan baseball has no postseason home-field advantage--awfully hard to come by when the Titans have never played a postseason game on their home field--because the NCAA only assigns regional tournaments to those schools with fully equipped baseball stadiums.

So LSU regularly gets to play host to a regional. And Texas. And Oklahoma State.

And the Titans regularly go to Baton Rouge and Austin and Stillwater and stomp all over the regional hosts on the way to Omaha.

For too long, this has served as a nagging Catch-22 for Garrido: If you can keep going to Omaha without the amenities, the anti-sport faculty types at Fullerton argue, why do you need $850,000 for a better ballpark? The current system is working, isn’t it?

After 20 years, Garrido would like to 86 this Catch-22 once and for all. And after winning his third NCAA championship in 17 years, his moment on the soapbox would not be denied.

“We just have to have a better plan for the stadium,” Garrido said. “This,” he added as he gestured to the post-victory mob scene near the Rosenblatt pitching mound, “is difficult. Yeah, we did it, but this is pretty much a miracle. It isn’t about money, it’s about facilities. Basic needs. It’s like being in biology class. You can’t find the amoeba without the microscope.”

Of course, at Fullerton, you could say the same for the revenue available for such a project. Microscope required. Augie could go door to door, holding out his navy blue cap and begging, “Brother, can you spare $850,000?” But he has put in more than two decades and 1,600 games already. He’s too old for that, too proud for that.

He has won three NCAA championships at a commuter school that couldn’t afford a football team, draws 700 for basketball games and last made these kind of national headlines when it was sued for dropping women’s volleyball.

Garrido is right--this is pretty much a miracle. If he feels entitled to some sort of payback now, who can blame him?

“We need everybody involved in the plan,” Garrido said. “We’ve got [university president] Dr. Gordon involved in the plan. [Athletic director] John Easterbrook is involved in the plan. Now we need the faculty to say, ‘This is worth it.’

“This is not just a public relations tool. We’ve got 25 people taking up a challenge and demonstrating what kind of success is possible at Cal State Fullerton.

“We’re doing good here. This is good for us. Everyone at the university shares in this process. We have a great university, we have great instructors on campus. But we need a focal point. We need camaraderie. Something like this can provide that. That’s why we need to win, why we need to be the best.”

What Garrido needs is a winning lotto ticket, or a good friend to gift wrap “Kevin Costner Pavilion” for him, or Michael Eisner to reach into his pants pocket, pull out the loose change and plunk down $850,000. He can keep the rest.

The daydream evaporates quickly, though. Back to Cal State Fullerton, back to reality, Operation Nickel and Dime is being nudged forward by Easterbrook as he completes his first year as athletic director.

“We’re looking at a three-year project,” Easterbrook said Tuesday. “First we’re going to complete the restrooms. Then we’ll have concession stands by the following year. After that will come the press box. We’re going to do it step by step, in an orderly fashion.”

Easterbrook plans to fund each step by selling permanent seat licenses--the catch phrase of the mid-90s, I know--where Titan bandwagoneers can pay between $300 and $1,500 to leap aboard for the next 10 years and catch maybe three or four more championship runs.

I’ll say this much: It’s a better investment than Ram season tickets.

As Garrido looks out his office amid the post-Omaha afterglow, he can see the crossroad. He sees Fullerton becoming the Chapel Hill of college baseball, with the right financial backing. He sees Orange & Blue County. Kotsay Country. “Fullerton: The World Capital of Aluminum Baseball.”

“This is real important to me,” Garrido said. “I used to feel like I was standing on second base and nobody’s up. Somebody’s got to bump me over . . .

“Now I feel like I’m looking at home plate and maybe somebody’s going to bunt me over to third and there’ll be a sacrifice fly in three to five years that will bring me home to win the game. I think it’s gonna get done.”

The day Cal State Fullerton plays host to its first NCAA regional, he’ll know.