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CWS can be corny,
but it’s still lovable

THE College World Series started yesterday in Omaha.

Rice was a game away from going. Hawaii had beaten Rice.

Florida State went all the way to a Super Regional before fading against the Gators.

UH had swept Florida State.

So here's where we bust out the old Sean Connery line from "The Untouchables": "Do you think he feels better? Or worse?"

» People are hungry for UH to get back to that level. Hawaii people love football, but we are a baseball town, too. You can see it every time the Rainbows show a sign of turning a corner. People can't wait for UH baseball to be big again.

» What a treat it was Thursday to hear Les Murakami on KKEA radio recounting his memories of Hawaii's 1980 trip to the College World Series. After we hadn't heard from him in a while, that was really special.

He always thought he would be back.

» I remember working at the College World Series a few years ago before I finally made it home -- I asked people their memories of Les Murakami, and everybody remembered that 1980 run.

» The College World Series is one of my favorite sporting events. The meatball sandwiches. The ice cream shakes. The Louisiana people who drive all the way to Omaha in their motor homes and spend the whole time camping outside the stadium -- which is right next to the zoo!

Well, the games are OK, too, I guess.

» This is the second straight game -- Super Regionals, then the CWS opener -- that I've seen the ace Nebraska pitcher's father spend the whole game in tears.

It should be silly, but that kind of thing always puts me down for the count.

» I can't even imagine the level of insanity in Omaha with Nebraska as one of the teams in the CWS. Those people are crazy. They're mostly peaceful, so I hope there were no riots. But these are the same people who tore down the goal posts at random high school fields when the Huskers won the national football championship in 1994.

Did you see it yesterday? The whole stadium was red. But my favorite part is the guy with the giant yellow foam corn cob on his head. I love that. I take great pleasure in that. I always laugh. My wife, an NU grad and big Husker fan, always gets annoyed. "Nebraska people aren't like that!" she says.

And then they show the Cornhead guy again and I laugh some more. Good thing she's at work right now, so we can't get into that fight, and --

» Oops. I just realized I probably should have been taping yesterday's game.