How did yall do the two years you went and what was the spectacle (or was it even a spectacle yet?) like as a player?
Would really love to hear your insigts on this.
it was a huge event for the town, but no TV yet so the rest of the country was not very involved. the citizens of Omaha treated us like major celebs. it was cool. i signed a jillion autographs, and there are many 50ish Nebraskans wondering today who the hell "Jimmy Raup" is.
two and barbecue one year
beat Arizona, then lost two straight the other year. don't remember which was which. the worst that year was losing the second game to St. John's, whose players were all blinking in the bright sunlight because they had not been outdoors much.
i never got in a game. my sophomore year against FSU, we lost in 12, and i pitched the last 5-6 in the BP. Falk told me more than once "if this guy gets on, you're in," but our starter kept wiggling out of trouble and went all 12.
the year i would have pitched a lot up there (1967), Tom Paciorek cruelly tore it from my grasp, leaving serious scars that are unhealed today.
Bill Little called our years "Tradition but no talent" in his book about UT baseball. that likely was true, but i played on three SWC champions. because the small schools would vote in a bloc, the SWC limited its baseball teams to 25 games and prohibited fall practice. as a result, the SWC rep was at a severe disadvantage in the CWS. it took UT and aTm threatening to leave the conference in baseball to force the SWC to drop those restrictions.
