Yesterday Baseball America awarded its 2011 Coach of the Year award to University of Florida head man Kevin O’Sullivan. The same Kevin O’Sullivan whose UF team lost 2 out of 3 regular season and 2 out of 2 National Championship Series games to Ray Tanner’s South Carolina Gamecocks.

When a team that is described with words like “scrappy” and “overachievers” whips a team that is described as “loaded”, don’t you attribute a tremendous amount of that to coaching? Call me biased, because I am, but are there any unbiased observers out there besides Baseball America that can honestly say Kevin O’Sullivan did a better job than Ray Tanner in the 2011 season? 

Now look, I’m not real big on preseason or postseason awards. I don’t really care, and I’m certain Tanner and his two rings care even less. But the Twitter exchanges of BA’s Aaron Fitt – a good writer and excellent ambassador for the college game – really got my temperature up. A sampling:
http://twitter.com/#!/aaronfitt/status/89025020608774144
Um, “spread the love”? What happened to giving your “Coach of the Year” award to the actual “Coach of the Year”? So Ray Tanner has won it twice, it’s time for somebody else to win? Why don’t you just go the way of Little League these days and give every coach a COY trophy? YAY, WE’RE ALL WINNERS!
http://twitter.com/#!/aaronfitt/status/89067594543398913
Honor great coaches – check.

Who did great coaching jobs – check.

Have built elite programs – screeeeeeeeeeeeech!!!

Part of the Coach of the Year award is to honor a coach who has built a great program? That’s up to the universities, and it’s called a pay raise and contract extension.

If that’s part of the criteria, then the guy who probably did the best coaching job in the country – Cal’s David Esquer – shouldn’t have even been considered given his program was almost put in the dumpster a few months ago.
http://twitter.com/#!/aaronfitt/status/89068268102483968
If he deserves it, then yes.

Fitt also had a tweet in there where he blasted Gamecock fans who strongly disagreed with him, but in the interest of keeping the peace with the G-Nation he apparently removed it. 

My disclaimer is this – nobody is out to get us.  This is not personal.  There is no great conspiracy against the University of South Carolina, its athletes, coaches or fans. 

In awarding its 2011 Coach of the Year, Baseball America quite simply swung and missed.

We saw it, we watched the highlights, we read every article on the internets about it, we watched it again on DVR, we bought the t-shirt, and the hat…and it will never, ever get old. 

But there is only so much we at TRC can write about Tanner, Wingo, Roth, Walker, et al, so we’ll leave it to Justin King Media to wrap this season (and a little of last season) into a nice, tidy little bow. 

Kudos to Mr. King, outstanding work once again. 

Or as we like to call it – Leggett-Cam.

Photo courtesty of gogamecocks.com.

I stood in my living room last night and watched the final out of the 2011 College World Series.  When I saw Matt Price point to the sky and Jackie Bradley, Jr. draw a bead on the final out of the season, I clapped my hands a couple of times and gave a little fist pump.  After a hug for the wife I sat back down and watched the celebration on the field. 

This was in stark contrast to last year when Scott Wingo scored the game-winner against UCLA and I went temporarily insane. 

As I watched ESPN I noticed something – like at my house, the celebration seemed slightly subdued.  There was a dogpile, and plenty of hugs and high-fives to go around.  Ray Tanner was obviously emotional in his interview, but in a different way than last year.  I was trying to pin down why this was the case, then it hit me.

You know the old saying, “act like you’ve been there before”?

Well, we’ve been there before.

Don’t get me wrong, this year’s title isn’t any less satisfying or enjoyable.  Quite the contrary.  This run through the NCAA tournament was about as fun as any sporting event I’ve seen – full of storylines, drama and huge plays.  And as I tweeted last night, this team is as likable as any I’ve ever followed. 

I think the thing is, for Carolina baseball, this is the new normal.  We have the best baseball program in the country, and I don’t think anyone can dispute that at the moment.  Making it to the CWS is no longer the goal.  Winning the whole darn thing is. 

I like the new normal. 

So, moving on…

As Tbone wrote yesterday, there were simply too many storylines to try to write a blog post.  But I’m going to give it a try, in Tusings-style.   My random thoughts over the last couple of days include:

• People kept talking about how cool it would be to win the last at Rosenblatt and the first at TDAP.  And it is cool.  Very cool.
• This year’s numbers – 10-0 in the NCAA Tournament; 16 straight tournament wins (NCAA record); 11 straight CWS wins (NCAA record).  16 and 11 won’t be broken any time soon.
• Pitching – USC gave up five earned runs in 51 innings pitched in the CWS for an ERA of 0.88.  We gave up four runs in the first inning of the first game against Texas A&M, then six runs in 50 innings after that.  Crazy.
• Maybe Ray Tanner isn’t quite in the company of Dedeaux, Garrido and Bertman just yet, but I would expect a statue of him at Ray Tanner Field at Carolina Stadium in the not too distant future.  (Oh yeah, and at least name the field after him.)    
• Scott Wingo is not the best baseball player in South Carolina history, but he might turn out to be the most memorable.  His play on Monday night to save the game is as good as you will ever see with that much on the line.  We will miss everything about that guy. 
• More Wingo – I looked it up, and the CWS MOP batted .230 as a Freshman, .196 as a Sophomore, and .247 as a Junior.  I don’t have his updated batting average after last night, but I think he’s been hovering around .330 recently.  Wingo always had the reputation as all glove, no stick.  He changed that dramatically this year and has given himself a great opportunity to play at the next level.
• Christian Walker is a badass, period.  And if anyone knows what Tanner meant when he said Walker’s wrist looked like a “stack of pancakes”, please fill me in.  I cannot for the life of me form an image that results in Walker playing last night.
• I wrote about Michael Roth last week, and he simply added to his legendary status since then.  I truly believe he deserved the CWS MOP as much as Wingo.  (Throw Matt Price in that mix as well.)
• Matt Price, what a clutch, clutch pitcher.  He threw 95 pitches on Friday, 16 on Monday, and 15 last night on the biggest stage in college baseball, and gave up nada.  He had us worried a few times, but as Roth said about him, “I think he gets into trouble just so he can pitch out of it.”
• Do you remember that John Taylor was our closer coming into the 2010 season?  He was lit up early and blew a couple of saves, and Matt Price became the man.  But this year?  A million appearances with an ERA just barely north of one.  We probably wouldn’t have made it this far without Every Day Johnny.
• Tyler Webb deserves a mention for his performance on Monday.  For the better part of two months he was coming out of the pen to face a lefty or two and then was done.  His 2 1/3 scoreless on Monday night gave us a chance to win.  I hope he can carry that over into a weekend job next year, he certainly has the stuff.
• Robert Beary’s backhanded, short-hop snag of Wingo’s wide throw on Monday night was spectacular and so far underrated.
• Peter Mooney, we hardly knew ye, but it sure was fun while it lasted.  I expect him to move on, but he kept up the tradition of great South Carolina shortstops for at least a year.
• ESPN, Dennis Dodd, etc., please quit talking about the bats.  Everyone had to play with them. 

Now to go order my t-shirt.

Too much drama.  Too many heroes.  Too much quintessential fighting gamecock spirit.

Words fail me, which is a big admission from a loudmouth blogger.

The Post and Courier‘s Travis Haney said it best via tweet:

http://twitter.com/#!/TravHaney/status/85554518238035968

I agree with Haney, but, but, I wanna say MORE.

Geeze.

Aw, heck, just watch the ESPN highlights – as bad a Mike Patrick was last night (and he was bad), the actions of these Gamecocks speak louder than any words of mine.

“South Carolina has got something very, very special going on right now. It seems like they just find a way.” – Virginia head coach Brian O’Connor.

Well, I’m out of rational explanations for this run the Gamecocks are on, so I guess Coach O’Connor’s quote about as scientific as we’re going to get. 

They just find a way. 

“The way” last night just happened to be a little more circuitous than normal, but I guess that makes the journey just a little more enjoyable, right?

Last night began with The Curious Case of Danny Hultzen.  The number two pick in the recent Major League baseball draft came out of the gates channeling Sandy Koufax.  The lefty went through our lineup with ease, striking out eight of the ten Gamecock batters he saw.  

But somewhere beneath his 94 mph fastball and wicked slider a virus was working, causing Hultzen to puke between innings and look a little like the walking dead while he was on the mound.  He was replaced to start the  fourth. 

Good on Brian O’Connor for not risking Hultzen’s first-round bonus money, but why the heck did he stay in the dugout the rest of the game?  Why wasn’t he in the clubhouse lying down, getting an IV, purging his body of evil?  He actually looked quite fresh around the sixth or seventh inning, and was even on the top step of the UVa dugout after Adam Matthews  scored the winning run.  Travis Haney speculated (on some speculation) that perhaps Hultzen was having some elbow discomfort, which for the kid’s sake I hope isn’t true.  He has a chance to be spectacular. 

In any case, the Gamecocks took advantage immediately and scored two runs off of reliever Danny Crockett.  The two runs were a little lucky as Brady Thomas’ double was misplayed by the UVa left fielder.  (Find a way, right?) 

Crockett was money the rest of his four innings of work, and Michael Roth was Michael Roth, as usual.

The real fun began when John Taylor came in to pitch the 8th for the Gamecocks.  An E5 put a runner on for the Cavs, and an uncharacteristic E6 by Peter Mooney allowed the Cavs to tie it up. 

It was as this point the momentum shifted, and you started to feel like maybe our CWS magic was fading.  As Matt Price’s pitch count grew, and we couldn’t find a clutch hit against Branden Kline (also spectacular) with runners is scoring position, I started to think ahead. 

No way we could come back from a loss like this.  UVa would walk over us Saturday night.  Our pitching is screwed, our bats had gone silent, it was just a matter of time before the Cavs would push a run across.  I started to reflect on the past year, and what a great ride it had been.

Then Matt Price wiggled out of bases loaded jam in the 12th with a 6-4-3 double play.  After another scoreless frame for the Gamecocks, Price was back in the soup again in the 13th, this time a bases loaded jam with nobody out.  It would be absolutely impossible to get out of this one. 

Yet he did. 

A strikeout followed by a liner to Wingo turned the absolutely impossible into reality, and as Mooney stepped on second I thought to myself, “OK, win NOW.”

And aided by two bizarre errors by the UVa pitcher, we did.  I would have never guessed a single and two bunts would win if for us, but I guess the old script for this team was thown out a long time ago.

The new script is simply one page. 

In the center of that page are the words “FIND A WAY”.

This is your weekend CWS open thread.