Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Three major sports events were held on Sunday afternoon and evening.
The assembled crowds were solidly behind one primary participant.
They cheered relentlessly from start to finish for their favorite.
As you may have guessed, Sunday’s overwhelming crowd favorites all won.
“Geauxmaha” Nebraska is the northern home of the Men’s College World Series Champion LSU Tigers baseball team
The Midwestern city of Omaha, Nebraska should be designated as the unofficial sister city of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Sunday’s College World Series final game between the LSU Tigers and Coastal Carolina was another match-up between two very evenly matched baseball teams.
The Tigers entered Sunday’s game with a 52-15 record. The Chanticleers (a rooster, by the way) were an equally impressive 56-12.
Charles Schwab Stadium in downtown Omaha holds about 25,000 baseball fans. Sunday afternoon’s Game Two of the College World Series featured another sell-out crowd.
The stadium looked more like LSU’s famed Alex Box Stadium – only with twice as many Tigers fans on hand to watch the games in “Geauxmaha.”
More than 20,000 wild and crazy, purple and gold clad LSU fans found tickets to pack the stadium again on Sunday afternoon.
Coastal Carolina was listed as the home team on the scoreboard. You would never have known that by watching this match-up on a sunny but very hot Sunday afternoon in eastern Nebraska.
LSU had taken a hard-fought 1-0 win in Saturday night’s opening game in this best-of-three series. Tigers pitcher Kade Anderson fired a 3-hit, 10-strikeout complete game gem to carry his team to the Game 1 victory.
The two teams returned to the field in Sunday afternoon’s Game 2. Temperatures reached the mid-90’s with heat indexes over 100 degrees for the entire game.
“Oma-hot” also applied to the coaches and umpires in Sunday afternoon’s game, too
Coastal Carolina’s head coach Kevin Schnall started the first inning by giving the home plate umpire a lot of unwanted assistance in calling balls and strikes. He had been warned a few times to mind his own business, but the dugout criticism of the home plate umpire continued.
The umpire quickly ejected Coastal Carolina’s head coach after he came out of the dugout to express his opinions in person.
The team’s first base coach also received the heave-ho after coming to his leader’s defense about the perceived ineptitude of the umpires.
“Coachless” Carolina got a bit of revenge by scoring a run in the second inning to take a 1-0 lead.
That’s when 20,000 LSU baseball fans really cranked-up the noise
The LSU Tigers faithful really love coming to Omaha. Local business owners in Omaha also like to see thousands of fun-loving LSU baseball fans boosting the local economy during the College World Series.
The massive crowd of Tiger fans chanted, “Geaux…Tigers” and “LSU! LSU! LSU!” as their favorite team rallied in the third inning to tie the game at 1-run apiece.
LSU added four more runs in the fourth inning to take a commanding 5-1 lead and hand Coastal Carolina’s 6’8” starting pitcher Jacob Morrison (now 12-1) his first loss of the year.
LSU starting pitcher Anthony Eyanson scattered seven hits, but his nine strikeouts kept Coastal Carolina off balance. A two run homer by Coastal’s Wells Sykes cut LSU’s lead in half to just 5-3 in the 7th inning.
Tigers reliever Chase Shores then entered the game – along with his 100 mph fast ball.
The thunderous LSU portion of the crowd roared its approval with every strike. Shores struck out four of the eight batters he faced in a scoreless relief appearance to preserve the 5-3 win for LSU.
The Pelican State is the nation’s best for college baseball in 2025
Sunday’s win over Coastal Carolina brought LSU its eighth baseball national championship and second title in the past three years.
Louisiana may legitimately claim to be the nation’s top state for college baseball this summer.
LSU’s latest title plus LSU-Shreveport’s amazing 59-0 NAIA championship season have put the Bayou State solidly atop the college baseball world.
A loud home crowd pushes Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley to victory in Hartford
Longtime golf fans just knew that this was going to happen on Sunday afternoon.
I changed TV channels right after the LSU baseball game to watch the closing holes of the PGA’s annual event held in Hartford, Connecticut. New England’s very own Keegan Bradley had pulled to within one shot of faltering Tommy Fleetwood with one hole left to play.
The 39-year old Keegan Bradley had already been selected to be the captain of September’s Ryder Cup matches at Bethpage Black outside of New York City.
The huge New England crowds in Hartford had already been saluting America’s fiery 2025 Ryder Cup Captain and regional favorite as he played each of the previous 71 holes.
Chants of “USA! USA! USA!” added to the golf drama coming down the stretch
Sunday’s final group in Hartford featured Great Britain’s hard-luck Tommy Fleetwood, Keegan Bradley, and PGA veteran Russell Henley.
Tommy Fleetwood (a 7-time winner on the European Tour) led by three shots with just four holes to go. He was seeking his first victory in 84 attempts on US soil.
Fleetwood (a two-time Ryder Cup winner for the European team) has struggled to close out fourth round leads in golf tournaments played in the United States.
US Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley had slowly pulled within one shot of the fading Fleetwood (who bogeyed two of the final three holes) as they stood in the fairway of the 18th hole late Sunday afternoon.
Tommy Fleetwood’s second shot from just 145 yards fell a few feet short of the 18th green. It left him with a 50-foot chip or putt.
Thousands of New England golf fans roared their approval after Keegan Bradley’s second shot into the 18th stopped less than 6-feet short of the hole.
Bradley now had a great chance of catching Fleetwood and forcing a playoff.
Unless…
Tommy Fleetwood’s third shot on the 18th hole rolled to about 6 ½ feet short of the hole. It was still his turn because Fleetwood’s golf ball was outside of Keegan Bradley’s.
A massive green side gallery groaned as Fleetwood missed his par putt and settled for a bogey.
The huge crowd went absolutely nuts chanting “USA! USA! USA!” after Keegan Bradley rolled in his birdie putt to flip the script and take a one-shot victory Sunday afternoon.
Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley is now #8 on the Ryder Cup points list. The top six point-getters automatically qualify for the team.
Bradley could become America’s first playing captain since Arnold Palmer did it in 1963.
Runner-up (again) Tommy Fleetwood was (again) disappointed after squandering the lead in the final three holes.
“I would love to, you know, just go and sulk somewhere – and maybe I will – but there’s just no point making it into a negative for the future,” said Fleetwood. “Just take the positives and move on.”
One positive for Fleetwood was the runner-up money of more than $1.7 million. He has now earned more than $30 million on the PGA Tour without a win.
The popular-but-hard-luck Tommy Fleetwood leads the PGA Tour in that category.
OKC! OKC! OKC!
Topping off Sunday’s home crowd fanatics were the 18,000 blue-clad fans at Oklahoma City’s Paycom Arena for Game 7 of the NBA Finals.
The Oklahoma City Thunder and the gritty Indiana Pacers had battled for six games to a 3-3 series tie.
Sunday night’s first half of Game 7 in Oklahoma City featured a continuation of this Rock ’em, Sock ’em Robots battle on the hardwood.
The frenzied home crowd stood on their feet for the duration of Game 7 chanting, “OKC! OKC! OKC!” ad nauseam throughout Sunday night’s tense game.
Indiana led at halftime by a slim 48-47 advantage.
Indiana’s top guard Tyrese Haliburton (who was already dealing with a calf injury) suffered a season-ending Achilles tendon injury in the first half. The loss of Haliburton didn’t help Indiana’s chances of coming out with a win on the road in Game 7.
Then the second half was played
The home team and their exceptionally loud crowd turned-up the defensive heat in the third quarter as OKC took a 13-point lead entering the final quarter.
Indiana turned the ball over nine times during the decisive third quarter.
The Pacers finished on the wrong side of a 21-7 turnover margin in Game 7.
OKC briefly increased its lead to 20 points early in the fourth quarter as the fans roared their approval. Indiana never came within ten points in the final minutes in losing 103-91.
The Oklahoma City Thunder won their first NBA title since moving from Seattle to the Sooner state in 2008. OKC went 68-14 in the NBA’s regular season this year and won the NBA’s Western Conference by an amazing 16 games over second place Houston.
Home television viewers didn’t seem very interested in watching a couple of mid-America’s best teams play in the NBA Finals
The television ratings for this year’s first six games of the NBA Finals were the lowest since 2007’s San Antonio Spurs 4-0 sweep of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The first six games of OKC vs. Indiana averaged less than 9.5 million home viewers.
That didn’t matter on Sunday night to the hungry home crowd in Oklahoma City. The Thunder, buoyed by its frenzied fans, found another level of energy during the second half to give OKC its first major sports title.
Sports fans in Omaha, Hartford, and Oklahoma City should be hoarse today.
They definitely got their money’s worth on Sunday!