From George Bush to Brandon Larson
Posted: Mon May 25, 1998 at 8:37 PM ET
OMAHA, Nebraska (CNN/SI) -- The College World Series and Omaha, Nebraska, seem to have been linked forever, but the NCAA's baseball championship originally began in ... Kalamazoo, Michigan.
That was the site of the 1947 College World Series, where the winners of two four-team, single-elimination playoffs squared off in a best-of-three final, which California swept from Yale in two games. A note of interest - the Bulldogs boasted a young first baseman who proved to be more successful in another arena - future President George Bush.
In 1948, the playoffs were changed to double-elimination tournaments, and a year later the final was expanded to a four-team, double-elimination format and moved to Wichita, Kansas. Eight
teams began the playoffs with the four finalists decided by a best-of-three district format.
The CWS moved to its current home, Rosenblatt Stadium, in Omaha, in 1954, simultaneously switching to an eight-team, double-elimination format that would continue until 1988. Jim Ehrler of Texas threw the first CWS no-hitter against Tufts and the Longhorns became the first team to win back-to-back titles.
In 1954, district playoffs were conducted to determine the eight CWS participants. Maximum tournament field size was 32 from 1954 until 1971, then 34 from 1972 to 1974.
The CWS' second no-hitter came in 1960, when Jim Wixson of Oklahoma State shut down North Carolina. A remarkable game of another sort occurred 10 years later, when Southern Cal outlasted Florida State 2-1 in a 15-inning marathon.
The one millionth fan attended the CWS in 1972, one of the most competitive series ever, when eight of the 15 games were decided by one run.
In 1974, Southern Cal won its fifth straight College World Series, but the event was more remarkable for the controversial debuts of the designated hitter and aluminum bats.
The championship was changed to a regional format in 1975 with eight four-team, double-elimination tournaments. In 1978, Southern Cal won its 11th CWS title, the most of any team.
The 1980s brought offensive fireworks to Omaha. CWS teams smashed a record 26 homers in 1981; three years later, the eight teams combined for an average 15.2 runs a game, a CWS record.
Oklahoma State made a record seventh straight CWS appearance in 1987, when the field was expanded to 48 teams. The next year, the eight regional champions were seeded into two, four-team brackets. Those two brackets played double-elimination with the bracket winners then meeting in a one-game championship.
Stanford won its second straight CWS title in 1988, the first team since Southern Cal in 1974 to successfully defend its championship.
The next season, Wichita State became the first team outside of Arizona, California, Texas or Florida to win CWS since Ohio State in 1966. In 1991, a single-session record 18,206 fans watched Wichita State beat CWS host Creighton 3-2 in 12 innings.
The CWS title returned to the West Coast in 1992, when Pepperdine beat Cal State-Fullerton and Golden Spikes winner Phil Nevin 3-2 to win its first Division I baseball championship.
In 1996, the CWS witnessed one of the most dramatic finishes in its history as Louisiana State stunned Miami 9-8 when second baseman Warren Morris hit a two-run home run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning.
LSU, behind tournament MVP Brandon Larson, repeated as CWS champs in 1997 with a 13-6 victory over Alabama before a tournament-record crowd of 24,401. Overall CWS attendance reached 204,309, another record, while all-time attendance surpassed four million.
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