Dogged pursuit of a title marks Fresno State's Cinderella run

Like his team, Fresno State's Tommy Mendonca has turned a forgettable season around with a memorable College World Series. Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images Luke Winn's Mailbag Have questions or feedback? E-mail Luke Winn. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND Follow Luke Winn on Twitter

OMAHA, Neb. -- In the makeshift merchandise tents that line 13th Street here outside Rosenblatt Stadium, prices on most of the College World Series gear have been slashed by now. Shirts emblazoned with logos of powerhouses who've already been sent packing -- Miami and North Carolina, Rice and Stanford, Florida State and LSU -- are half-off in most stands. One still commanding full price, however, is a white tee featuring the Fresno State Bulldog logo, bracketed by three lines of capitalized text in simple Helvetica font that read, "FROM UNDERDOGS / TO WONDERDOGS."

It looks more hastily designed than all the others, its provenance more likely to be Microsoft Paint than Adobe Photoshop. That makes sense, though: No one, apparel-makers included, expected Fresno, which finished the regular season 33-24, was unranked at the outset of this NCAA tournament, and was the lowest seed ever to reach the CWS, to still be alive and kicking at the end of the bracket.

Following Tuesday's 19-10 win over eighth-seeded Georgia -- which evened the CWS' best-of-three Finals at 1-1 and forced a deciding game tonight -- Fresno reliever Holden Sprague looked up to see his father, Don, standing behind the third-base dugout, wearing the "Wonderdogs" shirt. Sprague had thrown 3 1/3 innings of five-run ball to keep UGA at bay, but at that moment he was explaining to reporters that, contrary to what had jokingly been listed in the Fresno media guide and stated as fact by Barry Larkin on ESPN, Don's actual occupation was not "astronaut."

Don is a financial advisor who would struggle to fit into a conventional NASA suit. But on a night that seemed alive with potential -- the Wonderdogs, the equivalent of a 13 seed in the NCAA basketball tournament, could be pulling off one of the great Cinderella runs in all of college sports -- he laughed and yelled down to the field, "I've got a space shuttle to catch." At the end of the dugout, a pack of euphoric Fresno fans shouted something even more improbable to the players making their way into the tunnel: "National championship tomorrow! National championship tomorrow!"

The prospects of that seemed incredibly dim when Fresno began the season ranked No. 18 and proceeded to lose 11 of its first 19 games. Even after reaching the NCAA tournament, it faced elimination at the hands of heavily favored San Diego, Arizona State and North Carolina, yet emerged from each of those battles, said third baseman Tommy Mendonca, with a heightened sense "that anything is possible."

Never had the Wonderdogs' situation felt so dire, their elimination seemed so imminent, though, than when they fell behind Georgia 5-0 in the third inning on Tuesday night. The Dawgs had already seized the Finals' momentum with a four-run comeback in the bottom of the eighth on Monday and won Game 1 by a score of 7-6. Once they surged ahead in Game 2, talk in the press box turned to travel plans, as reporters were looking into rebooking flights home one day early. What Fresno pitching coach Mike Mayne had described as a "bailing wire" situation with his staff -- they were playing on their fourth straight day, and had thrown out the kitchen sink by using five pitchers on Monday -- appeared to be coming undone against the Dawgs' powerful lineup.

Fresno's Cinderella magic had not run out, though, and it began to work again in the bottom of the third, when the Wonderdogs rallied for six of the 19 runs they'd score on the evening. Coach Mike Batesole would prefer to describe it as pluck ("That's not the first time this club has answered the bell when they had to."). Star left-fielder Steve Susdorf describes it as coolness ("There was no sense of panic [in the dugout].") but there seem to be supernatural forces at work as well.

How else does one explain how Fresno could call upon Jake Hower, a senior pitcher who hadn't made an appearance the entire postseason and had a 6.95 ERA, to close Game 2 of the CWS finals -- and have him throw three scoreless innings? Or how Mendonca, their No. 6 hitter who this spring set an NCAA single-season record for strikeouts (with 96), has nearly as many home runs (a CWS-leading four) in Omaha as he does whiffs (seven)? Mendonca's three-run homer in the third got Fresno's rally in full gear on Tuesday; between his parabolic blasts and his Gold Glove-level work at the hot corner, he is the front-runner for CWS MVP honors, even ahead of Georgia's All-America shortstop, Gordon Beckham, who was recently taken with the No. 8 pick in the MLB Draft by the White Sox.

Mendonca has been masterful despite having two dislocated fingers on his throwing hand, the result of an injury suffered on May 30 in Fresno's NCAA tournament opener at Long Beach State. There hasn't been time to give it proper medical attention; he estimates he's only been home for a few nights since the regular season ended, and, he said, "I've made it this far without a doctor, so why stop now?"

Why stop now, indeed? Batesole likes to say that the Wonderdogs have been battling on the road for 40 days now, from the WAC tournament in Ruston, La., to the NCAA regionals in Long Beach, Calif., to the super regionals in Tempe, Ariz., to this two-week upset party in Omaha. Batesole is embellishing, slightly. They've made a few pit stops back in the Central Valley -- but compared to Georgia, which played its last home date on June 8 to seal a trip to the CWS, Batesole's boys are vagabonds to the extreme. Their last home game was on May 11.

"This club's got a lot of heart," Batesole said. "Usually you get out on the road for a weekend or two, and you can't wait to get home and sleep in your own bed. We passed that stage about four weeks ago. This team has just been going and going and going, and they're going to go for nine more innings."

Fresno has no choice but to trot out its best remaining starter, lefty Justin Wilson, on three days' rest for Game 3. In a Cinderella run like no other, there is no rest for the weary. The Wandering Wonderdogs are running on fumes, but they do a fine job of hiding it.