By David Steinle
Special to LSUsports.net
Tuesday night’s LSU-Tulane baseball game at Zephyr Field officially started at 7:09 p.m., but probably at least half of the crowd of 10,870 had to settle for Jim Hawthorne’s radio description of that first pitch rather than watching it live from their comfortable seats (with cupholders to boot) at the park known as “The Shrine on Airline.”
That’s because once again, the college baseball fans of Louisiana responded en masse for yet another renewal of what has become arguably the nation’s best intrastate rivalry between the Fighting Tigers and the Green Wave. Traffic on Airline Highway trying to enter Zephyr Field was backed up for well over one mile coming from downtown New Orleans, and the traffic was no less gridlocked coming from Baton Rouge by Tiger fans scrambling to the stadium.
Some LSU fans had a time-honored Tiger solution to the traffic, arriving at sunrise or just a little after that to enjoy a Tuesday afternoon of tailgating as if it they were on the corner of Nicholson and Skip Bertman Drives, waiting for action to get cranked up at Alex Box Stadium. Where else in America, except maybe Starkville, are you going to have this kind of atmosphere for a college baseball game?
Since 1998, the Tigers and Green Wave have played nine times in New Orleans — eight times at Zephyr Field and once last year at the Louisiana Superdome. Nine times, there have been crowds of more than 10,000, including last year’s 27,673 that showed up at the Superdome to set the NCAA attendance record. If you’re counting on that number to still occupy the top spot in the 2004 record book, don’t hold your breath. If both teams are anywhere near the polls on April 29 when the teams return to the Superdome, last year’s attendance record will have to settle for the runner-up spot in the books.
With the large crowds, the unmistakable atmosphere that is south Louisiana and the high caliber of baseball played by both schools, LSU-Tulane is college baseball at its best. What began way back in 1893 as a friendly skirmish between the state’s most prestigious universities has made quantum leaps in intensity in the 110 intervening years, especially in the 1980s when the Tigers became regular participants in the College World Series and the Green Wave wanted to get there.
The arrival of coach Rick Jones in the Big Easy not only revitalized a Tulane program, but took the series with LSU to an even higher level. In the nine-plus years since Jones took over the Green Wave, LSU holds an ever-so-slight 12-11 edge in the series, and like the series record itself, most of those games have been competitive, save a few here and there, most recently the 21-6 victory by LSU at Zephyr Field in 2000 and Tulane’s 13-3 win at The Box in 2001. Tuesday’s game was the sixth one-run game since 1994 between the teams and the fourth to come down to the last inning.
Zephyr Field is a gorgeous park, a great place for a ballgame, but for LSU, it hasn’t been the friendliest confines when Tulane has been the Tigers’ host. Tuesday’s victory was Tulane’s sixth in the eight LSU-Tulane games played there, including the 2001 super regional that brought down the curtain on Skip Bertman‘s legendary LSU career.
At Zephyr Field, the left-center field alley is marked at 409 feet (and rumored to be much deeper) and center field is a good 407 feet, home runs are at a premium, and a team without outfielders who can cover a lot of ground will watch a lot of balls roll into the gaps for doubles and triples. But with the change in the dynamics of college baseball since the park first opened, Zephyr Field is a much more favorable park for the Tigers than it would have been in past years.
When LSU first played in the stadium in 1998, the Tigers were in the heyday of the Geauxrilla Ball era, a stretch in which LSU became the first and only NCAA team to hit 100 home runs in four consecutive years. The minus-5 bats were launching balls out of parks at an alarming rate, and one of those space shots happened to be by LSU All-American Eddy Furniss, the SEC’s career home run king. In the Tigers’ 1998 game with UNO in the park, Furniss launched a mammoth blast that landed a good 50 to 60 feet beyond the pool deck that sits in right field.
Since the 2001 season, a span of six games, LSU has hit exactly two home runs in the stadium. With the Tigers now more reliant on pitching and defense than in recent years, one could surmise LSU would do quite well at Zephyr Field if it didn’t have to play Tulane every day.
But that’s another argument for another day. Back to the LSU-Tulane rivalry, specifically Tuesday’s game.
LSU looked pretty good through the first five and a half innings, grabbing a 4-0 lead and holding the Green Wave to just four hits, thanks to the exploits of Justin Meier, who continues to be a rock in midweek contests. Meier had worked out of a bases loaded jam in the second inning, and then proceeded to retire eight of the nine batters he faced over the next three innings as it appeared the Tigers would win their sixth straight.
An error on what looked to be an inning-ending double play ground ball opened the door for the Wave, and Tulane walked through that door — literally. Meier fought hard but finally gave up a 10-pitch walk to score Tulane’s first run, and then the Tigers appeared to lose track of the strike zone, throwing 10 consectuive balls to walk in two more runs. All of a sudden, it was 4-3, and Tulane had the momentum.
LSU knew it had to strike back quickly, because Tulane went to its Tiger killer in the bullpen, left-handed closer Joey Charron. Charron kept the Tigers at bay with 4 2/3 scoreless innings, snuffing out a bases loaded threat by LSU in the 10th before the Wave finally won it in the 11th on Jon Kaplan’s RBI single, as Dustin Weaver had the chance to tag out Tulane runner Wes Swackhamer, but the ball squirted out of Weaver’s glove as he made the tag.
LSU’s five-game winning streak is over, but they have found out a lot about themselves and about the folly of the game of baseball itself. For one, there are no guarantees, and the game can break your heart just as easily as it can lift your spirits.
Rarely, if ever, has LSU been involved in consecutive games involving comebacks like the ones the Tigers have experienced this week.
On Sunday, LSU was down to its final strike with a 2-0 deficit against Winthrop, only to win the game, 3-2.
On Tuesday, the shoe was on the other foot for the Tigers, as they lost a 4-0 lead. That’s the beauty of the game–you can’t kneel down, you can’t play a spread offense, you can’t kick the ball back to the goalkeeper every 20 seconds. You have to play a baseball game until that 27th out, or sometimes more, as LSU has discovered.
Now, for the revelations that will make coach Smoke Laval‘s job easier as he fine tunes this group for the Florida Gators this weekend.
Overall, the pitching staff is rock solid, as the Tigers’ 3.03 ERA is nearly three-quarters of a run lower than it was entering the conference last year, and opponents are hitting 29 points lower than was the case in 2002 at this time. Not having Lane Mestepey in that Friday night slot hurts, but keep in mind this season has a very long way to run, and the Tigers have tended to pick up the pace as the calendar continues to march on.
At the plate, the hits are there, but they just have to come closer together. LSU enters the weekend with a .288 batting average, but has shown more than a few times in 2003 that it has the ability to get runners home from scoring position, as evidenced by a team batting average of .322 in those situations.
Defensively, errors have hurt, yes, but the Tigers have actually cut down on the miscues from last year, committing 12 fewer errors. Keep in mind you have new players in new position, and there will always be a learning curve.
Now, the games are serious, if they weren’t already. The 30 games of the Southeastern Conference will determine the Tigers’ fate, and if the early season schedule is any indication, LSU is more than ready. LSU has played four teams that are ranked or have been ranked in the top 25 this season, and there is only one more team on the LSU schedule that has a losing record.
And certainly few teams in the SEC can match the balance that Tulane presents. The Wave has a bona fide All-American in Michael Aubrey, a top-flight reliever in Charron, and three freshman starting pitchers that will keep Jones and the Wave at or near the top of Conference USA for years to come. Even though LSU came up on the short end of the stick on Tuesday, just playing the Wave two or three times a year is mutually beneficial for both schools.
Tulane can wait for the two meetings in April, but undoubtedly when those two games roll around, the fans, the Tigers and the Green Wave. The SEC is at hand, and thanks to another classic battle with the Willow Street bunch, LSU is ready for the championship chase.