Omaha Still Feels Like Special Place to Titans

Spencer Oborn remembers the first time the College World Series caught his attention. It was 1990, Oborn was 12 years old and he watched in awe, in fear, in utter amazement as Cal State Fullerton left fielder Rich Gonzales ran into the outfield wall, a metal wall, and was knocked unconscious.

As the ball sat in Gonzales’ glove and Gonzales lay on the grass in some other world, three Oklahoma State runners scored. Gonzales was carted off to the hospital and the Titans went two and out.

Before Fullerton left for this CWS, Gonzales called Oborn, the Titan left fielder. “He told me,” Oborn said, “to watch out for the wall.”

That’s the special part of the CWS. Same time, same place every year for 50 years. Legends are made in the same place. Alums can call the kids and say “watch out for the wall.”

Turns out that it wasn’t the wall that knocked Oborn for a loop though. It was the bat. The way the bat wouldn’t make contact with the ball. Not for Oborn or third baseman Ryan Owens or first baseman Chris Beck. The heart of the Titan order went six for 32. Oborn hit .273, Beck hit .182, Owens hit .100. These three juniors, all major league draft choices, were pretty much powerless as the Titans, having already fallen to Stanford in Game 1, were eliminated Wednesday night by Florida State, 7-2.

Beck, who has been fighting back spasms during the series, dribbled into a double play with the bases loaded and one out in the third inning when Fullerton was losing only 2-1 and might have been able to knock out Seminole pitcher Chris Chavez. Chavez had been nauseous and bothered by a bad headache all day and maybe if Beck had crunched a big hit, knocked in two or three runs, maybe Chavez would have been pulled and maybe the Seminoles would have had to go deep into the bullpen.

But Chavez ran off the mound grinning in the third inning, and in the fourth too after Fullerton’s first two batters had reached but the Titans again scored no runs. And Chavez kept running off the mound smiling for nine innings, the second complete game against Fullerton in Omaha.

“We weren’t swinging the bats good, no excuses,” Beck said afterward. “Bats went away,” Oborn said. “Our hitting disappeared,” Owens agreed.

Yet these three also were not totally sad Wednesday night. Each made a point of walking onto the empty field afterward, just to look around. Each spoke emotionally of how proud they felt to have played at Rosenblatt Stadium, to have taken Fullerton to this special tournament, to have made for themselves this memory that will be theirs forever.

“When the bus drove up here the first time last week,” Owens said, “I got the chills. Really.”

“I had thought forever how great it would be to see this stadium for the first time,” Oborn said, “and when the bus got close and you could see the stadium on the top of the hill it was, like, 10 times better than I ever could have imagined. I can’t explain it exactly, but it was.”

Beck said he thinks that in its way the CWS is better than any of the other NCAA national championships, better even than the basketball Final Four, because the teams have been coming to the same place, to this same stadium, for 50 years.

It is a hallowed place, a place with legends and history and big moments that have all taken place on the top of this hill not far from the Missouri River. Every year the fans come in their RVs and campers and grill in the parking lots or go to the corner of 13th and D streets to have cherry shakes made from the richest ice cream you can fathom and grilled Italian sausage sandwiches at a place called Zesto’s.

“If you are a baseball player, you grow up watching this,” Beck said, “and I can’t begin to tell you how special it is to have made it here.”

Since Fullerton began playing Division I baseball in 1975, no Titan who has stayed from freshman to senior year has failed to make at least one CWS appearance.

There is a sense of entitlement, almost, among Fullerton baseball players. Owens, Beck and Oborn, a transfer from Brigham Young, all say they ended up becoming Titans because they felt certain being a Titan would bring them to Omaha. So if their performances once they reached Rosenblatt Stadium were not as they might have wished, none of the three could be depressed about anything except going home on Thursday morning instead of Sunday morning.

“This is the best experience I could have ever had,” Owens said. His eyes were a little red when he came out of the locker room, a sign of tears maybe having been shed. “This is what I came to college for, to have this kind of experience and camaraderie.”

Owens, Beck and Oborn each talked separately about how much playing for this team had meant to them, how they are all friends, how they have grown close through some tough things like the suspension of four of them before the NCAA super-regional and the disappointment of not getting to host, again, any portion of the NCAA tournament.

“There’s a spirit about this team that will stick with me forever,” Beck said.

Smoke was still rising beyond the outfield. Somebody was still grilling meat in the parking lot. A silent double row of little boys and girls stood at the top of the stairs outside the Titan clubhouse. They were waiting for autographs. Same time, same place for the last 50 years. Being part of this, who could be sad? Who could be anything but proud?

*

Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com