Game Two of the College World Series Wednesday night and …

Mercy.

Baseball is a very humbling game.

The first person I ever heard say that was Sam Wilkinson, All-State first sacker for the Fair Park Indians in the late 1950s, the batboy for the Shreveport Sports before that, the equipment guy for the Houston Astros after that, and finally, for 30 years, the trainer for Louisiana Tech’s athletic teams.

I had always known that but had not been able to put it into words. Besides Geez League Baseball that I played until I was 35 — our sons grew to competitive baseball stage so we had to quit — the most recent competitive baseball I’d played was American Legion for Homer in 1978, maybe 1979. We were very good. Seven of our nine starters were All-State. The only ones who weren’t were the catcher and the third baseman.

I played … catcher or third base. Depending on who was pitching.

Baseball is a very humbling game.

Wednesday night’s Arkansas/Oregon State game in the College World Series is a perfect example that Sam knows what he’s talking about.

In the best 2-out-of-3 series, Arkansas, winner Tuesday of Game One, was winning, 3-2 in the ninth and one strike away from winning the CWS title. The count was 2-2 when the Oregon State batter popped the pitch into the gray area in foul ground between the right fielder, second baseman, and first baseman. If either one of them would have been the only fielder on that side of the diamond, one would have caught it. But all three, naturally, chased it.

And…confusion.

And… it dropped.

And…the batter stayed alive and got a base hit to left to score the runner from third and tie the game. The next hitter hit a two-run bomb and made it 5-3 Oregon State and … ballgame. Arkansas could not score in the ninth and we play Game Three tonight.

Arkansas might win. I doubt it. Either way, Wednesday night’s game was amazing. A thrill. A reminder: it ain’t over til it’s over, and…and you never know. In baseball, you just never do. You can’t…You just can’t know.

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