The 2017 NCAA College World Series begins this weekend in Omaha, Nebraska. The annual event in the nation’s heartland is more than a week of drama-filled games featuring highly-competitive college baseball teams, their loyal and boisterous supporters, and often-fun stories about the teams, players, and their creative fans.
This year’s top rated college baseball team is Oregon State. With an incredible record of 54-4, the Beavers will cruise into Omaha as the #1 seed sporting an unbeaten streak during the NCAA regional and super-regional rounds and face Cal-State Fullerton’s Titans in the first round this weekend.
Meanwhile, Cal-State Fullerton made it to Omaha after defeating an entire team of Dirtbags from Long Beach State last weekend to reach Omaha. Seriously. The Long Beach State baseball team has proudly sported the nickname of “Dirtbags” on their home uniforms since 1989. As the story goes, the school did not have on-campus baseball facilities, so an assistant coach took his infielders to practice at a nearby all-dirt youth baseball field. When the infielders returned to join the rest of the team, they were regularly covered with dirt from the youth field. The other coaches joked about the assistant coach and his bunch of “Dirtbags”. As the 1989 Long Beach State baseball team fought its way to a surprising 50-15 record, the “Dirtbags” moniker became a badge of honor for the scrappy team and has remained a source of school pride today.
Joining Oregon State and Cal-State Fullerton in this year’s College World Series are three SEC teams (LSU, Florida, and Texas A&M), two ACC schools (Louisville and Florida State) along with the Big 12’s TCU, which is making its fourth consecutive appearance in Omaha.
There will be Beavers, Titans, Tigers, Gators, Aggies, Cardinals, Seminoles, and even Horned Frogs on display. Sorry. No Dirtbags in Omaha…at least for this year!