here is the article from the day after in May of 1967. i'll answer questions through my tears. there is more to the story during Paciorek's AB, dammit:
By GEORGE BREAZEALE
Sports Staff
Seeing is believing, they say, but one might need a rerun of the ninth inning of Friday's Houston-Texas NCAA District Six baseball playoff game at Clark Field before the events became credible. Houston trailed, 3-0, in the top of the frame, had two out and none on base and was within one strike - that's right, one strike - of interment in the best-of-three series.
Yet the Cougars won, 4-3, to gain their first berth in the College World Series since 1953. And in winning they had to weather so many crises that a general inertia prevailed on both sides after the final out.
Buried in the wake of the stinging loss for Texas -- coach Bibb Falk's final game at the helm - --- was one of the most magnificent pitching performances in recent years by a Longhorn. Senior righthander Jimmy Raup, possibly the only man in Austin who thought he could go nine innings, hurled a superb two-hitter for 8 2-3 frames, facing only 30 batters and never allowing a UH runner past first.
But the 27th out, the one which would have given Texas its 12th trip to the CWS at Omaha, hung up there somewhere just out of reach until too late.
Even after Houston's unbelievable comeback, when it three times overcame two-strike burdens, Falk's last team made a superb effort to tie it up. But it was a Cougar day. Pinch runner Doug Fell was thrown out at the plate trying to score from second on outfielder Pat Brown's single up the middle and the last chance had passed up the Southwest Conference co-champions, who finished their season at 17-11, giving Falk a final won-lost mark of 477-177 for 25 years.
And now ... look at the bizarre rerun of the Houston ninth.
Coog first baseman Ken Hebert led off, tried to bunt his way on, but Raup threw him out. Third baseman George Cantu lifted a high fly just behind second and shortstop Jimmy Hunt gobbled it up.
Then up came the batting terror of the playoff series - outfielder Tom Paciorek, who had come into the final game with seven hits in nine trips. But now he was zero for three. Raup ran the count to 2-2 - and then Paciorek sent a bleeder down the third base line for a single. Outfielder Bo Burris lined a hit to left center and second baseman Ronnie Baker doubled on the left field slope, scoring both runners. That was all for Raup. Falk summoned junior righthander Al. Clements to pitch to shortstop Art Toombs. The count went to 3-2, and then Toombs walked.
Next up was catcher Chico Silman. And again, maddeningly, the count was 3-2. Clements came in with a low fastball, and Silman tripled high on the left field cliff to score Baker and Toombs with the runs which wrote finish to the Longhorns. Southpaw Gary Gressett then relieved loser Clements and got Walter (Bubba) Hill, the winning pitcher, on a tap to short.
Texas made a bold bid. Catcher James Scheschuk grounded to third but Gressett's hopper to Baker got away for an error and the Horn pitcher made it all the way to second. And then second baseman Don Johnson was on with a walk.
Outfielder George Nauert swung late on a Hill offering and flied to left. That brought up Brown. On a 2-2 pitch he sizzled a hopper through the middle. Fell, running for Gressett, tried to come all the way in, but Toombs picked up the ball, fired to Silman and Fell was an easy out, sliding in.
Raup, used almost exclusively in relief this season, got scoring support in the first inning. Nauert walked, Brown doubled and first baseman Bob Snoddy scored Nauert with a hit up the middle. Then third baseman Minton White's blooper to left center brought in Brown, but further damage was averted when Snoddy was thrown out at the plate trying to score on shortstop Jimmy Hunt's single to right.
Snoddy 's double and White's second hit to left set up outfielder Kelly Scott's sacrifice fly for another run in the third, but White later was trapped in a rundown between third and home when Hebert erred on Hunt's hopper.
That 3-0 lead wasn't substantial enough. Reliefer Larry Stitcher extricated the `Coogs from that third inning and held off the 'Horns until departing for a pinch hitter in the eighth. Then Hill came on to do the rest.
"There are just some games that aren't in the books for you to win," White, who led all the hitters with three safeties, said. "This was one of them."
Maybe he was right. A disconsolate Raup thought so. "I still had my stuff in the ninth," he said. "All those pitches they hit were good ones. I was using the same ones I got them out with before. But this time they didn't hit them to anybody."
Falk, heading to the dressing room showers for the last time, was philosophic. "Some days you try things and they work," he said. "Other days you try and they don't."
