Driving in this a.m., ESPN featured as one of their finalists for greatest highlight, an injured baseball player who hit a homer in the bottom of the 9th to propel the Dodgers into the WS. As I listened (on Sirius), I could not help but compare to Chance Wheeless' homer against Baylor, and wondered why the play selelcted by ESPN would be more worthy of the honor. I vote for Chance. GREATEST HIGHLIGHT
You know the answer to that. As much as we love college baseball, it's still not a popular sport. You would be hard pressed to find anyone outside of Texas who knows about that homer. Plus, if you honestly think that Wheeless' homer was the best one in Omaha, Warren Morris would like to have a talk with you.
He hit a walk-off 2 run homer for LSU in 1996 in the championship game against Miami. He was hurt nearly the whole year and had just gotten back for the postseason. I don't expect most people to remember it though, which just goes to show how unpopular college baseball is. I only know about it because I grew up in Baton Rouge and went to a ton of games at Alex Box.
I giggle every time I look at that picture, between Pat Burrell and Alex Cora crying in the dugout biting that towel. That's the reason there is that statue out front of Rosenblatt. Yeah.. I'm a hater. I obviously learned no compassion from seeing Kieschnick get that ball rolled out to the mound on him against Oklahoma State, or the job that CSF did on us in 2004.
I think the story behind Chance's homer is what is so great about that particular hit, and I'm not just talking about his shoulder. The fact that in that situation an injured player would go up to his coach and say "I hit this guy really well ... please just give me a shot," and he goes up there and knocks it out of the park ... that's what I love college baseball. There were so many great moments for Texas in Omaha that year, but especially in that game. Aside from Chance's homer, there was Nick Peoples flattening Josh Ford at the plate, Drew Stubbs doubling off Reid Brees, Taylor Teagarden had a home run too. Just a dominant run through the best teams in baseball that year.
I never get tired of watching that clip of Chance's homer. That was one of my favorite Longhorn sports moments of all time.
The Warren Morris homerun was awesome. Not to take anything away from Chance's blast, but the Morris homerun won the championship game of the CWS. If I recall correctly, that was the first and only CWS championship game decided on a walk-off home run.
I was hoping they were going to show Chance's entire at bat. His previous cut at the ball was so weak that my friend and I could not believe he was at the plate. Then he showed us why. That was an awesome CWS. We were so dominant. I was fortunate enough to get to go up there for the entire week. It was incredible.
I liked how they kept showing Chance taking the shoulder harness off and on between fielding and hitting.
I was watching the Miami/LSU game. I think that was the first year they did away with the double elimination in the Championship game. I kept thinking to myself that Miami got hosed since they hadn't lost a game until that homer. I couldn't believe it when he hit it too. Felt like Gibson only on the college level.
