OMAHA, Neb.—When Texas takes the field for its first College World Series game Sunday, the Longhorns will be back on a traditional baseball diamond.
Their home stadium, Disch-Falk Field in Austin, is anything but.
Texas’ field was redone in the offseason and is now covered entirely by FieldTurf. That includes the base paths, which are colored brown.
The new surface plays much slower than a field like Omaha’s Rosenblatt Stadium, which is just fine with coach Augie Garrido, who gave the new surface his blessing when it was proposed.
Garrido said the surface counters the power of metal bats. Balls slow down dramatically on FieldTurf, he said, and that gives infielders a better chance to reach grounders.
Texas, the top defensive team in the nation, made just 15 of its 50 errors at home. Last year the Longhorns made 44 at home.
Longhorns shortstop Brandon Loy and second baseman Travis Tucker said it took a few games to get used to the artificial surface.
“It’s a lot slower,” Loy said. “I guess it’s just different because it’s so much slower than everything else. I guess it’s easier in a way. You get true hops, but then again, it takes away a lot of hits from the hitters.”
In Texas’ first 29 home games, the Longhorns and opponents combined for 7.8 runs per game. That average went up to 11.2 runs over the first 16 road games.
Tucker said the artificial surface served as a confidence-booster for the defense.
“The turf actually helps calm ourselves down on grass and on dirt,” Tucker said. “It makes us feel comfortable fielding ground balls. We have a lot of confidence that we’re going to do our best.”
The players and their coach said they’re not concerned that Rosenblatt’s dirt likely will harden as the CWS moves on, adding more speed to grounders.
“It gets really fast,” Garrido said. “You can’t do anything about it.”
Said Loy: “I’ve been on dirt my whole life. It’s not that big of a deal. You don’t think about it much when you’re playing.”
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DICK HOWSER FINALISTS: Two CWS players—North Carolina first baseman Dustin Ackley and Arizona State pitcher Mike Leake—joined San Diego State pitcher Stephen Strasburg as finalists for the 2009 Dick Howser Trophy.
The three standouts were the favorites in balloting by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association. The Howser Trophy winner will be announced July 2 in Lubbock, Texas, during the inaugural College Baseball Awards Show.
Ackley came into the CWS with a team-leading .412 average. Leake leads the nation with 16 wins, and Strasburg had a nation-leading 195 strikeouts and an ERA of 1.32 that ranked second.
This is the 23rd year for the Howser Trophy. It’s named for the late Dick Howser, who was an All-America shortstop and later head coach at Florida State. He also managed the Kansas City Royals to their only World Series title in 1985.
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FOUL CALL: The biggest blown call of the CWS’ opening day came in the second inning of the Virginia-LSU game. Third-base umpire Darrin Sealey ruled Dan Grovatt’s drive into the left-field corner foul—even though television replays showed that the ball landed 2 feet inside the line after getting past LSU left fielder Ryan Schimpf.
Grovatt, robbed of extra bases, ended up with a single on the next pitch.
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TONGUE TWISTER: Public address announcer Bill Jensen always has a challenge in properly pronouncing CWS players’ names, and he was put to the test in the series opener between Arkansas and Cal State Fullerton.
Arkansas’ No. 2 hitter, shortstop Ben Tschepikow, was correctly announced as Ben SHEP-ih-KOFF each time he batted. Tschepikow, the second-leading hitter on the team, went 3 for 4 with three singles and scored three times.
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SHORT HOPS: Saturday’s Game 1 attendance was 23,549. That compares with 20,039 for the 2008 opener. … Virginia’s Brian O’Connor was picked as national coach of the year by the National Baseball Writers Association. … Southern Mississippi coach Corky Palmer doesn’t discount his team’s chances against Texas or anyone else in the CWS field, noting that some other lesser-known programs have made noise in Omaha. “I always go back to Creighton, the Citadel and San Jose State. Where there’s a will there’s a way. I always say, ‘Why not Southern Miss?’ Baseball’s a game of streaks. We’re hot right now. We might cool off. I don’t know. But right now we’re playing good.”
