Okay, so it really doesn't matter that the Longhorns came out on top of the Bears 10-8 in a 14-inning scrimmage on a perfect fall Austin day at Disch-Falk Field. So little that the number of scouts in the building almost outnumbered the fans enjoying some Texas baseball in the fall, a preview of the team that should begin competing for another national championship just a few months from now. Speaking of scouts, I went over and pestered one from the Oakland A's for his radar gun readings on the Longhorn pitchers and insights on Texas players and ended up talking to him for half the scrimmage about Longhorn football -- it turned out he played baseball at Johnston and committed to Texas before turning pro. Many thanks to him for putting up with me.

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In further contemplating my thoughts from the other day about next year's version of the Texas baseball Longhorns, some notable absences and glaring omissions became apparent. The purpose of this post is to tie up some of those loose ends as much as possible -- of course, all of this is pure speculation and many of these questions will not satisfactorily be answered until the deadline for drafted players signing contracts passes, fall baseball, and, for most of them, until the season starts many months from now.

Even though it is so long until the next baseball season, the pure potential of the team is extremely exciting, and, hey, it's the off-season, so why not talk about it...

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It's a refrain more worthy of a Chicago Cubs fan than a Longhorn baseball fan. As Augie Garrido says repeatedly, Omaha is the minimum expectation for his baseball team. His statements explain the massive disappointment felt by fans after Wednesday's loss to LSU in the CWS Finals, even though the Longhorns had failed to make it to Omaha since 2005.

As much as the failure against LSU still stings, the refrain mentioned above is the cooling, healing salve that will help remove that sting in the grueling, barren landscape of the off-season. Wait 'til next year. The reason is simple -- the 2010 version of Texas baseball could be even better than the thrilling, yet flawed, Heart-Attack Horns of this season.

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AO is on his honeymoon so to sum up the '09 season I (JA) will be writing in the first person singular. I know, it's revolutionary. We all know how the season ended (6-7, 5-1, 11-4), so I figured I'd go big picture with this one.

As a New Orleanian, the fall of 2005 was a tough time for me. My senior year at UT started and I was facing Hurricane Katrina and the toughest tragedy of my life when Texas traveled to Columbus, Ohio to play Ohio State. It was at that point that I made a decision that I had never made before as a sports fan. As a sports obsessed southerner (like many of you), I lived and died every time my team played, rejoicing with the victories and despairing with the losses. Before that game, though, I decided that I would rejoice and celebrate if Texas won, but there was too much crap going on in the world to get depressed if Texas lost. So if they lost, I decided, I would simply ignore it. It may seem stupid, but it was revolutionary for me at the time to simply choose not let sport get me down. Since then, with rare exception, that has been my reaction to every loss, big or small, by all of my favorites teams. Why put myself through misery if there isn't a positive emotional jolt to be gained by following the game?

It won't be for at least a year that we can truly put the 2009 baseball team into perspective, just as the 2004 baseball team is defined as much by the team that followed it as it is by anything that squad accomplished during the year. Despite that it is through an optimist's optic that I choose to perceive this magically flawed baseball team that dropped 2 of 3 to LSU.

We can question Augie's decisions that failed against LSU: to pinch hit certain players, bring in defensive substitutions, pull pitchers at certain times, moves that have been made successfully throughout the season. But what does that accomplish other than to prove the power of hindsight and the human frailty of even the most immortal of managers?

We can despair the poor results of Austin Wood, Austin Dicharry and the rest of the bullpen's efforts during games one and three. But why detract from previous phenomenal efforts by some of the team's most talented veterans and youngsters without whom this season would have ended in May?

We can say LSU got lucky, that Texas wins a title if Preston Clark's long foul ball in game one goes fair, or one of three HBP's aren't quite as close, or any other break that went LSU's way had gone for Texas. But good fortune is an essential part of winning in every sport. Good fortune is the reason Texas beat ASU and USM, good fortune is why a 2-loss LSU team won a national title in football, and it is good fortune when a Heisman Winner decides to try the hook 'n ladder without notifying the ladder. Titles are won on good fortune and it's never made sense to me why a champion should apologize for it.

We can say that tournaments do not always reveal the best team. But the goal every year is not to be the best team, it is to win a championship. A champion should not have to deal with questions over whether it was the better team. LSU won 2 of 3. That's enough.

Instead, I choose to percieve the 2009 baseball team only in a positive light. This is a team that returned Texas to Omaha for the first time since 2005. This is a team that won the Big XII taking 5 of 6 from Aggy and OU. This is a team that won a 25-inning game, had two walk off homers, a walk off walk, a complete game shutdown, and a miraculous comeback against the best pitcher in all the land. This is a team that added a month of excitement to the worst part of football season (the offseason).

Finally, and most importantly, this is a team that returns all of its starters and a large part of its bullpen in 2010. Key players like Travis Tucker, Brandon Belt, Michael Torres and Austin Wood will have to be replaced, but a talented group of reserves and incoming freshman should fill the gaps nicely. And Brandon Loy, Kevin Keyes, Connor Rowe and Cameron Rupp will all be back, with another year of growth under their belts.

The Kiddie Corps from 2008 were runners up in 2009 and could be very well favored to win it all in 2010. We won't be truly able to put the 2009 effort into perspective until the 2010 season sees its end.

To close the 2009 baseball season and truly begin the gruling offseason I'd like to use the words of Douglass Southall Freeman in his biography of Robert E Lee. Freeman writes:

When the story of a soldier is completed, and the biographer is about to leave the last camp-fire of a man he has learned to respect and to love, he is tempted to a last word of admiring estimate. May he not, by doing some fine phrase, fan into enduring flame the spark of greatness he thinks he has discovered in the leader whose councils he has in spirit shared? May he not claim for him a place in the company of the mighty captains of the past? Yet who that reverences historical verities can presume to say of any soldier who rises above the low shoulders of mediocrity, "In this he outshone or in that he rivaled another who fought under dissimilar conditions for a different cause in another age?" Circumstance is incommensurable: let none essay to measure men who are its creatures. Lee’s record is written in positive terms; why invoke comparitives? The reader who can appraise the conditions under which he fought can appraise the man.

The 2009 Longhorns were a brilliant, fun, gutsy, magical team who fell one win shy of the pinnacle of college baseball. Their record should be written (and spoken and blogged) in positive terms. That should be enough.

Congratulations are in order for LSU, they are the 2009 champions. As for the 2009 Longhorns, we should appreciate all they accomplished and look forward to just one more win in 2010.

One way or another college baseball is going to end tonight. Hopefully it's with a victory and national title, but a loss sould do little to dampen the memory of this incredible run. For Texas fans it should be a familiar story. The opponent has its best on the mound versus a very good Longhorns pitcher.

Ranaudo's numbers the last 6 starts:

MSU 7.1 6 H 4 ER
Bama 7.1 4 H 4 ER
Baylor 9 3 H 2 ER
Rice 7.2 5 H 5 ER
UVA 3.1 5  H 2 ER (left with bases loaded, 1 out)
Ark 6 IP 4 H 0 ER

What should this tell us? He's a guy that's going to eat up innings, he's not going to give up a ton of hits, he may give up some runs but he's probably not going to get shelled. At 6'7" Ranaudo is probably the most physically imposing pitcher the Horns have seen this postseason. His numbers on the year (2.87 ERA, 14 homers given up, opponents hitting .202, 155 Ks in 119 innings, 45 BBs) tell us he strikes out a lot and can give up the walk and homer.

The first two or three innings are going to tell us a lot. Can Texas grab an early lead and put the full pressure on LSU's hitters? Cole Green running into early trouble has been usually indicative of a rough start, but he has been a different pitcher the last month of the season.

You know the storylines, you know the announcers will be wearing their purple and gold. Hopefully tonight ends with a burnt orange dogpile.

Taylor Jungmann. Here's a mental exercise for ya: name a Longhorn in any sport who has had as gutsy a performance when his team desperately needed a superhuman effort in an absolutely must win game. Who'd you come up with? Us too.

Remember what you're wearing and where you were tonight. Same place, same attire tomorrow night. 9 innings from those 4 little words from Craig Way.

They say that it is always darkest just before the dawn. Let's hope they're right. There's nothing to tell you that you don't already know about last night, but c'mon...if this team was going to win a title they were going to do it the hard way. If tonight is the last night of the season, it has been a magical ride that has restored Texas baseball to Omaha. If not, momentum will swing quickly in our direction.

Game starts at 6 PM on ESPN

via a.espncdn.com

If you listen to some LSU fans, it's a matchup of talent versus magic, a matchup usually won by talent. Of course that ignores recent CWS history of 4-seed Fresno State winning last year, unseeded Oregon State beating more talented North Carolina teams in 2006 and 2007, and a supremely talented Texas team losing to unseeded CSF in 2004 only to win the title the next year with an unseeded squad (over #7 seed Florida). 

No, what we've got here is a matchup of college baseball's two best teams. It's the team of the 90s (5 titles including the title in 2000 belonging to Skip Bertman) versus the team of the 2000s (6 CWS appearances, 4 title game apperances, 2 titles and counting). Texas will have to beat LSU's aces Louis Coleman and Anthony Ranaudo. LSU will have to beat Texas aces Chance Ruffin and Cole Green. It's as simple as that.

LSU fans can talk about blasting their way through Omaha and playing great ball (because it's true), but how are the Tigers going to respond if Texas takes an early lead and they have to play from behind? LSU is just 11-10 on the season when the opposition scores first. Will the Tigers wilt under pressure down a run in the 8th or 9th with Austin Wood on the mound? We've seen how Texas has responded in the CWS to these situations, hopefully we'll get to see LSU in these tough spots.

LSU has shown all season it can mash the ball, Texas has shown in Omaha that it can mash the ball when it needs to. LSU is 21-4 since April 28th, Texas is 19-3 during that span. In other words, both teams are very hot and playing great baseball.

Game one starts at 6 PM on ESPN. If you're in the DC area, come to our BON watch party.

Both teams should feel right at home