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Sidelines Kalani Simpson |
CWS remains the land
of ahs for TrapassoTHE College World Series started today in Omaha. A city, a stadium, become amateur baseball's shining cathedral on the hill.
Les Murakami took the Rainbows to this promised land in 1980, took the town by storm, stopping just short of a championship. And they say he always planned on going back.
So did Hawaii's current skipper, Mike Trapasso, who made it there as a player at Oklahoma State.
The taste of it stays with them all.
"I always said I was not going to go to Omaha to watch a game unless we (whichever team he was a part of at the time) were in it," Trapasso said.
It's been awhile. He's come close.
His old Georgia Tech squad made the trip the year after he left.
Twice, Trapasso has pitched in the College World Series, with OSU teams in 1984 and '85.
"Our plan was always the same," he said. "During the Big Eight season I was a starter. In the postseason I was the closer."
And twice, he was on the mound when the Cowboys clinched.
What a feeling.
Trapasso was struck by it again last week, watching the Super Regionals on TV, when baseball analyst Jeff Brantley said that his trip to the College World Series was the most enjoyable moment of a career that included 14 seasons in the major leagues.
"The atmosphere," Trapasso said. "The way it's put on, to me, is better than a bowl game." Better than the Super Bowl or the NBA Finals.
This was where Trapasso beat Billy Swift. And then the Cowboys were bombed to the brink of elimination by Barry Bonds and Arizona State, only to come back with "the best single game I'd ever been involved in," against New Orleans. "We were down to our last strike," Trapasso said, and then Pete Incaviglia hit a double, and Okie State was alive.
All the details are still vivid, every player, every pitch.
Including the next year's opening game, "the ball Rafael Palmeiro hit off me that's still going."
(Ahem.) Well, enough about that.
But Trapasso said he doesn't tell his players the details of his days in the CWS. Only that he's been there, that he knows the way.
"We have the tradition because of Coach Les," he said. "We have the facility.
"We have a chance to get there, and that's why I'm here."
And that, he said, is what players want to hear. After all, it worked on him.
"It was the reason I chose Oklahoma State."
Then, he said, the players signed their leases in Stillwater to move out a few days after the championship game. They knew they'd be in Omaha until then.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com