Burnt Orange Nation: An SB Nation Community

Navigation: Jump to content areas:



Around SBN: MLB Hot Stove: blogging the rumors, trades, signings Bar-right-arrows



Texas Baseball: a YouTube History ('02 and '05)

As the Texas baseball team enters its regional play on Friday against....no way that's right...St. Johns?  They have a baseball team?  Whatever.  Anyway, as the team enters another postseason, its as good a time as any to remember the previous two national champions (2002 and 2005) and their magical seasons.

And rather than spend time and effort coming up with well-written odes to these two teams, let's just go to the YouTube, why don't we?

First, we whet your appetite with the CWS-clinching strikeout of a dastardly Florida Gator in 2005 by the superbly named J. Brent Cox.  The rest of the clips are after the jump.

 

Star-divide

Turning to the 2002 national championship season, I must note that college baseball isn't a sport for which there is a great supply of YouTube clips.  So we've got to go with mostly highlight videos.  Because of that, a lot of the individual plays that made the season get lost in the mix without proper context. 

Case-in-point: the first highlight of this video was one of the most dramatic plays I've ever seen.  Texas led 2-1 with 2 outs in the 8th inning of its first game of the 2002 CWS against Rice.  The Rice batter hits a grounder to third, which the third baseman boots into foul territory, the Rice baserunner coming from second tries to score the tying run, and the rest is history.

Also in this clip is Chris Carmichael's home run in the championship game against South Carolina (back then, it wasn't best of 3).  Carmichael started all of 16 games the entire season with exactly one home run, but for some reason that only Augie Garrido and his witch doctor understand, he started the national championship game and went deep.  For me, this cemented the Augie legend in Texas.

Also not featured heavily in that video was Huston Street.  Now the closer for the Oakland A's, it's hard to overstate how dominant he was in 2002.  In college baseball, batters routinely his .350.  Hell, in 2002 Dustin Majewski hit .401 for the season!  And Huston Street posted a 0.96 ERA in 47 innings with a .148 batting average against.  In fact, this was just a phenomenal pitching team all around.  Starter Justin Simmons went 16-1 with a 2.52 ERA.

Going back to 2005, Texas seemed to just dominate the CWS despite being only a 5 seed, winning all of its games by a combined 24-8 score including a shutout of #1 overall seed Tulane.  Only one game was truly in doubt, a 4-3 win over Baylor that Texas trailed 3-2 in the bottom of the 8th.  The Horns tied the score in the 8th and then, in the bottom of the ninth, with a birth in the CWS championship series on the line, Chance Wheeless happened:

Texas went on the sweet the Florida Gators in the best of 3 championship series, with the aforementioned J. Brent Cox strikeout sealing the deal.  Here's a full highlight video:

 

This 2008 team isn't nearly as good as those two teams were, but here's hoping they give us a similar ride regardless.  Hook 'em.

2 recs | Comment 7 comments

Read Related

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

Display:

right

i forgot he played third base in college.

by billyzane on May 28, 2008 6:35 PM CDT to parent up   0 recs

At 20 seconds into

the first video, one of our guys whiffs on the dogpile. How is that possible?

by kellen on May 28, 2008 6:21 PM CDT   1 recs

also in the first clip

boddicker in the stands

by the other Andrew on May 28, 2008 6:27 PM CDT   0 recs

Great moments in Omaha.

Minor edits for perfection:
birth> with a berth in CWS
on the sweet> on to sweep

I thought the catcher, 35 for Baylor, was going to throw the ball at #1 going to the dugout; he was raring back and obviously pissed.

Good clips; still got chill bumps on the last one. Both of those years were great. Thanks.

And a little trivia to get your Omaha blood a pumping: Who pitched the first-ever College World Series no-hitter?

Jim Ehrler: Texas 7, Tufts 0, June 19, 1950.
Texas was en route to its second CSW National Championship, winning back-to-back in ‘49 and ‘50 under Bibb Faulk.

That was only the third no-hitter in school history. Bobby Layne threw the first two, whiffing Southwestern 7-0 in March, 1946, at Clark Field with 16Ks and then beating the Aggies in College Station, 2-1, with 14Ks, in May of the same year (Texas made two errors; the run was unearned).

When I was in school, that ‘49 and ‘50 looked mighty lonely there in the outfield at Clark Field, but now they have a lot of company. Bibb left in ‘67 and Gus came in, but it would still be a while until his teams finally solved Omaha. I did see one no-hitter, by Burt Hooten against Sam Houston State, 8-0, in February, 1971.

Who had the last of the 19 Texas no-hitters, also in a CWS title year?

Adrian Alaniz, April 16, 2005 over OU, 4-0, at Disch-Faulk. Some of y’all should have been there; sounds like a pretty good blood-lettin’.

by whills on May 28, 2008 8:33 PM CDT   1 recs

Great post, BZ

Good to remember where the ‘02 championship team was when the tourney started out. Let’s win some baseball games!

--Horn Brain--

by Horn Brain on May 28, 2008 11:21 PM CDT   0 recs

sweet memories

I was shocked by the Carmichael HR as well. Great stuff.

Oh yeah: suck it, Matt LaPorta.

by jc25 on May 29, 2008 2:45 PM CDT   0 recs

Comments For This Post Are Closed


User Tools

Welcome to Burnt Orange Nation, a blog dedicated to University of Texas athletics.

FanPosts

Community blog posts and discussion.

Recommended FanPosts

Small
Dear Missouri: 35-7
Small
UT Police gets it right...

Recent FanPosts

Small
Texas Longhorns v UCLA Bruins
Brandedbevo1024x768_small
Bevo's Daily Roundup 12.05.08
Cartman-screw-you-guys_small
Leach NOT going to Washington...sources saying they just got USC's OC
Texas_old3_small
Here is the real BCS calculation explanation
Tony_prock_web_headshots_003_small
What if FL beats Bama...
Cartman-screw-you-guys_small
Davey O'Brien voting ends 12/7!!! PLEASE VOTE FOR COLT RIGHT NOW!!!!
Pigeons_small
NYC Horns - Villanova Happy Hour near MSG?
Small
Texas Gets Another Year from McCoy
Facebook_small
Mack's OSU/ou game interview
Small
Pat Forde: Colt has my vote for Heisman

Post_icon New FanPost All FanPosts Carrot-mini


Site Editors

Pb6_small PB @ BON

Dark_pumpkin_small awiggo

Editors

Jersey_front_small 54b

Zombie_profilepic_small Horn Brain

Gse_multipart20834_small 40AS

Pigeons_small billyzane

Small whills

Small GhostofBigRoy

Brandedbevo1024x768_small dimecoverage

ad

Site Meter