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Omaha is a distant destination for any team from cooler climates

By Bob Madison - For the Chronicle | Jun 23, 2023

Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium was replaced by Charles Schwab Field in 2011. Courtesy photo

SHEPHERDSTOWN — Supposedly they all have equal chances to reach college baseball’s Holy Grail.

But if you are from above the Mason-Dixon Line or the Midwest or Plains, your hopes of somehow claiming the NCAA baseball national championship are diminished.

This year, Oral Roberts in Oklahoma is the people’s choice, because its underdog status and location make it the most cuddly of the eight teams.

Perennial powers such as LSU, Florida, Stanford from northern California, Virginia and Texas Christian return to Omaha vying for the national championship.

Tennessee and top-ranked Wake Forest aren’t usually at this baseball version of nirvana but they are Southern teams.

The upstart Ole Miss Rebels won it all in 2022.

And through the years the earlier formats that gave Northern teams and even schools with small enrollments have been removed in favor of 16 Regionals — each with four teams — and the Super Regionals that take the eight survivors have replaced the “Districts” that once allowed schools like Ithaca, Northern Colorado and Holy Cross to all qualify for one College World Series years ago. Even Michigan and Missouri were in that 1962 field.

But the “district” system has gone the way of Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium (since replaced by Charles Schwab Field in 2011) and all eight teams being in the same double elimination bracket.

Southern California, Arizona, Arizona State, Vanderbilt and Texas were once the most dominate teams. And Florida State has been to Omaha 21 times and has never claimed a national title.

The Southeastern Conference (SEC), Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) and Big 12 have pushed their ways to the top of the college baseball pile.

However, nobody can reach Omaha in year-after-every-year fashion.

Beginning in 1967, and now through 2022, only Wichita State (1989) and Oregon State (2006, 2007 and 2018) are non-Southern teams to become national champions.

Every session of the double-elimination tournament is a sellout or near sellout. At Rosenblatt, some sessions weren’t even half-full in the 1960s.

Television has helped popularize the event, bringing nationwide exposure to teams like Coastal Carolina, Fresno State, Cal State-Fullerton and Arkansas.

The atmosphere at all the World Series games is made electric by the size of the crowds, the high quality of play and the general interest being created in who will become the national champion.

College baseball now has its large-sized, comfortable stadiums. Almost every team has lights for night games. The quantity of talented players who will eventually dot the rosters of Major League teams has increased greatly.

And interest in the College World Series has continued to grow.