OMAHA, Neb. -- The true spirit of the Men's College World Series in Omaha is not found in a ballpark. Or a history museum. Or in the words of some bronze marker commemorating some amazing college baseball moment that took place on some amazing college baseball day, unleashed by some amazing college baseball player. Nor is it in a bar.
Anyone who comes to Omaha over the next two weeks for the 75th edition of the MCWS in its great and rightful home, seeking to dip themselves into the waters of what makes it one of America's greatest sports marriages, need only visit a place that combines all of the above: a well-worn red, white and blue baseball card shop on the south side of 13th Street.
Stadium View Sports Cards, owned and operated by local attorney-turned-de facto MCWS commissioner Greg Pivovar, contains pieces of ballparks, literal stacks of history worthy of any baseball museum: ticket stubs, baseballs, ball caps and posters of Series long gone. If you can catch the man himself behind the counter sifting through it all, he'll offer you a cold beer. So, yeah, it's a bar, too.
And, yes, Stadium View once had a view of a stadium. The stadium. Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium, built in 1949 and dangled as a lure to convince the NCAA's struggling baseball tournament to come to town one year later.
It has never left. Even though it did leave this neighborhood, originally built by Omaha's meatpacking community more than a century ago, and moved 2 miles away in 2011 to downtown Charles Schwab Field.
"We've tried to become a bigger event city, with more NCAA stuff, but this is still us," Pivovar, or the man better called "Piv," explained in April, as he cleaned out Stadium View's cobwebs ahead of this year's MCWS. "It is what defines us."
It's true. After 75 years, it is impossible to mention the city or event and not immediately think of the other. Like Augusta and the Masters, Indianapolis and the 500, Pasadena and the Rose Bowl. And this year's event starts Friday.
"We never say that our goal is to make it to the College World Series," said LSU head coach Jay Johnson, who has the Tigers in their 20th MCWS and also led Arizona to a pair of visits. "We say Omaha. We have to make it to Omaha. It's not the Road to the College World Series. It's the Road to Omaha. And that's because it's as much about the people in this city as it is about a baseball tournament in this city."
Mister Baseball
Those people who make the Omaha experience so special start with one person: John R. Rosenblatt.
Rosenblatt had two loves of his life, the city of Omaha and baseball, and their order of importance was a tie. As a kid, Johnny was a letterman outfielder at Omaha's Tech High. He was offered a chance to play ball for the Iowa Hawkeyes but needed to stay home and get a job to help support the family. He was known to play a half-dozen games a day, switching jerseys from game to game through a kaleidoscope of semipro teams, from the Omaha Buffaloes to the Murphy-Did-Its. He once played in an exhibition game alongside barnstorming Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, and he faced off against Satchel Paige in a matchup between local semipro ballplayers and a touring team of Negro League all-stars.
Rosenblatt's true baseball dream was to convince an MLB team to establish a minor league farm team in Omaha. He and best friend Eddie Jellen created the Original Stadium Committee. Even after Jellen was killed in World War II, Rosenblatt wouldn't be deterred.
On Oct. 17, 1949, Municipal Stadium was dedicated, sitting atop a hill on 13th Street that overlooked the Missouri River, directly over a former encampment site of Lewis and Clark, and into Iowa. Few attended. Why? Because down the road in Lincoln, the Cornhuskers were hosting Notre Dame in football.
The following summer, Rosenblatt, now an Omaha City Council member, and his colleagues brought the NCAA's 3-year-old Men's College World Series to Municipal Stadium with the promise that the city would cover any financial losses, of which there were many. By 1954, Rosenblatt was mayor. By 1964, the ballpark had been renamed Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium. As Rosenblatt began struggling with Parkinson's disease, his successors incorporated their efforts and worked to ensure that the event stayed in O Town.
"My father [Jack Diesing Sr.] and others, they recognized very early that this could be a signature event for this city, and really, the College World Series and this city grew up together, from a quaint little tournament and quaint little town into a very big tournament and a sizable city," explained Jack Diesing Jr., chairman of CWS of Omaha, Inc., the local nonprofit organizing committee led by his father at its founding in 1967. Now his daughter, Lisa, is a board member who feels to be the heir to what her grandfather and father have built. "But even as they have grown together, they have also kept that original small-town spirit, and in my opinion that's what separates it from others."
Hosts and toasts, with a side of fried steak
Jim Costello has a pocket full of stuff he wants to show us. For the past five years, he has been a team host representing the American Legion. Before that, he was a host on behalf of the Kiwanis Club of Omaha, beginning all the way back in 1983. But what exactly does a team host do?
"They do whatever the teams need to be done," Costello said with a shrug and a laugh. "Like, seriously, whatever."
In 2008, when Fresno State arrived in Nebraska to begin its legendary "Underdog to Wonderdog" run to the title, it was Costello who greeted the team at the Lincoln airport. Yes, Lincoln. A wall of tornadoes had forced the team's plane to land an hour away and in the middle of the night. But when head coach Mike Batesole said he wanted to take his team straight to Rosenblatt Stadium at 1 a.m., the answer from Costello and bus driver Chris Clark wasn't, "No, you can't do that." It was, "Of course, Coach, just let me talk to the security guys when we get there."
In 2004, when Cal State Fullerton won the Series, the school's alums invited the Titans to come across 13th Street, just a short walk from Stadium View, for a party at the house they always rented, whether the team made it to Omaha or not, the one with the big "F" over the door like it was Delta House. When standout catcher Kurt Suzuki couldn't get through the parking lot because of all of the fans wanting to shake his hand, team host and Optimist Club ambassador Fred Uhle threw the 200-pound catcher on his back and gave him a piggyback ride to the celebration.
Even back in the 1950s, coaches recalled experiencing heat waves at the hotels during unseasonably hot summers or even the infamous "Monsoon Series" of 1964, and there were hosts showing up with box fans, blocks of ice, ponchos or all of the above.
"One year, our team needed their jockstraps washed," Costello recalled through a fit of head-shaking laughter. "Not their uniforms. Not pants or jerseys or even socks. Just the jockstraps. So, there my wife and I were washing a load of jockstraps. I've bought diapers in the middle of the night. Whatever. Over at the Walmart they know that at some point during the College World Series they'll be seeing Jim Costello coming in there with a list."
In fact, Costello still has a list from 2010, when he was assigned to the South Carolina Gamecocks. Among the items scribbled onto an Embassy Suites notepad: six golden delicious apples, 10 bananas, pistachio nuts and, Costello's favorite, Trident Tropical Gum Orange.
"They were very specific about that," Costello said.
Watch: 'Game On: Journey to the NCAA Championship'
The payoff for his efforts? When the Gamecocks won the last Men's College World Series held in Rosenblatt Stadium, they had a championship ring made for their host. It was even engraved with his name. In 2018, Oregon State did the same. Other teams he has hosted during title runs have become great friends, paying off in visits to Fresno and Stanford, California, and Charlottesville, Virginia, and too many lifelong friends to count.
"Here we are at the biggest event in our sports, and it feels like a cross between a weekend youth travel ball tournament and a family reunion," said Ray Tanner, the coach of that South Carolina team, former NCAA baseball committee chairperson and just-retired South Carolina AD. "You practice during the week at high schools and at Boys Town, and local residents are there waiting with waters and snacks. Your hosts are from civic clubs and have all been doing it forever, and they are taking you fishing or going to eat at a steak fry or out to [Offutt] Air Force Base to look at the B-52 bombers. Even as the event has gotten so huge, all of that feels like it always has." So have the baseball games. And so have the people watching those baseball games.
Familiar faces, on and off the field
Like the Indy 500 or the Rose Bowl, true longtime locals like to identify themselves with one simple question. "Where are your seats?" At Rosenblatt, every single section of the technicolor seating bowl was packed with first- and second-generation Men's College World Series fans. People like Ann Walters, an Omaha schoolteacher who attended her first MCWS in 1951, its second edition, and missed only a handful of games over the next 56 years, most of which were because her daughter got married in the middle of the '99 Series. Walking to the fence and receiving one of Walters' custom-crocheted team Kewpie dolls became as much a part of every head coach's pregame ritual as turning in their lineup card and shaking hands with their opponent.
Thousands of those longtime Rosenblatt season-ticket holders made the move downtown with the Series in 2011. Like Mike Gudenrath of Food Bank for the Heartland. His grandfather, LeRoy Barry, bought four tickets in 1961, Box 1, Row 1, Seats 1-4 at Rosenblatt Stadium. Now, he shares six tickets at "The Chuck" with his daughter, son-in-law, wife and brother. And even the first family of CWS of Omaha, Inc., the Diesings. Jack Jr. has so many obligations during every MCWS, including awarding the championship trophy. But everyone who knows Jack also knows that when the games are being played, he is to be left alone, smiling from his paid-for row of seats jammed full of children and grandchildren.
"For me, that opening weekend in Omaha, which is always Father's Day, that's the most special time, because there is already this family vibe to the whole event, but that Sunday, it's off the chart," said Dave Van Horn, who will have Arkansas on the field this weekend for his 10th MCWS as a head coach, eighth with the Razorbacks. The other two? Well, those are the two that locals are still giddy about; Nebraska in 2001-02 when Big Red fans wrapped Rosenblatt by the thousands hoping for a general admission ticket. "That weekend you're there with your family, and you look into the stands and see all of those families together. And then when you've been back time and time again, you begin to recognize those families, and the kids have grown up, but they have grown up watching your teams and they have their favorite players, because of memories they made together, watching us. That's more than baseball. That's special."
Precious memories, precious players
Every single one of those families has its favorite Men's College World Series moments and players.
Ann Walters, who died in 2016, got downright giddy whenever she talked about watching Dave Winfield nearly single-handedly win the 1973 title, striking out 29 and hitting .363, but his Minnesota Golden Gophers eventually lost to USC.
Everyone in Omaha still buzzes about the hometown heroes of 1991, when the Creighton Bluejays, from their campus only a few blocks away from the current ballpark, ruled the Series for six days, reaching the semifinals against Wichita State before losing on a dramatic home plate dash-turned-final out in the bottom of the 13th inning. That moment is what inspired the Road to Omaha statue that has stood watch at the entrance of both Rosenblatt Stadium and Charles Schwab Field. One of the faces on that statue is Brian O'Connor, who was raised across the river in Council Bluffs, Iowa, was on that Creighton team and returned to win a title as head coach at Virginia.
From Jerry Kindall, who hit for the cycle for Minnesota in '56 and won three championships as Arizona head coach, to Mark Kotsay, who ripped a pair of homers for Fullerton to beat USC in '95, to the star-studded field of '85 with Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Will Clark, Barry Larkin, Dave Magadan and the like, to the SEC-dominated decade-plus of today with Paul Skenes, Jack Leiter and Kumar Rocker, every Omaha fan has their favorites.
But everyone also has their one favorite.
"It is truly the honor of my life when this time of year comes around and the phone starts ringing, or when I go to Omaha to watch my school and everyone still remembers me," Warren Morris said.
Today, Morris is a 51-year-old financial executive in Alexandria, Louisiana. But ever since June 8, 1996, he has been the timeless hero of college baseball. The author of the signature moment of Omaha's signature event.
LSU vs. Miami for not merely a national title, but for the title of College Baseball Team of the '90s. On a sweltering day, the Tigers fell behind to the Hurricanes 7-3. In the bottom of the ninth, they trailed 8-7. With a runner on third and two outs, Morris, who hadn't played most of the season because of a broken hand, stepped to the plate to face All-American reliever Robbie Morrison.
Back home in Alexandria, his mother was watching on TV. All she could think was, "Oh, no. Poor Warren. Please don't let him make the last out of the season." He didn't. Instead, he saw the first-pitch curveball he was looking for. He flung his entire body at the ball, which cleared Rosenblatt's right-field corner by only a few feet.
"As I ran the bases, my vision turned toward second, and that's where I saw all of the Miami infielders on the ground," Morris said, referring to the famous images of now-Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora with his body in the dirt and his face in the grass. "That's when it registered with me, wait a minute ... that wasn't just a home run. We just won the College World Series!"
That Omaha spirit
The foul pole that was nearly grazed by Morris' home run still stands. A yellow pillar in the parking lot of a zoo, which is what the hallowed ground of Rosenblatt Stadium became after the ballpark was abandoned for downtown in 2010.
Home plate is still there, too, as part of a miniature version of Rosenblatt. It's even surrounded by those rainbow seats that once towered so high into the air at that same location. Overlooking that spot where kids now run the basepaths after spending the day watching tigers and owls where Tigers and Owls once played ball is a photo of Johnny Rosenblatt and a plaque telling the story of the baseball-crazy kid who made this all come to life for his hometown.
Just out of sight from this historic site, only a few minutes' walk away, sits Stadium View Sports Cards. And inside, surrounded by the ghosts of College World Series' past, Piv describes himself as "the last two dinosaurs on 13th Street, me and this place."
He remembers that moment in '96. There's still a little TV/VCR combo mounted to the wall inside the store. It doesn't really work now, but on that day it did. The cable service was on about a five-second delay, so whenever something big happened in the stadium and a roar went up, people would come running off the sidewalk and into Stadium View. "When the crowd erupted, there were 30 people that flew into this door to see what happened and see if they could see the replay."
Now, they trickle in during the Series, having driven in from downtown or walked over from the zoo, to get a taste of how things used to be, not to mention the taste of a free beer. Whenever they see something from '96, they gasp. If they are dressed in LSU purple and gold -- and so many are -- they buy up anything they can find that has any attachment to Morris.
But most, they just want to hear the stories, put life's clock on pause and tap into that Omaha spirit.
"Everything changes. You can't do a damn thing about that," Piv said. "But the way the College World Series makes people feel, that hasn't changed. It's changed locations. It's changed the way it looks. It's big time now. It's more corporate. But the way it feels for people, the way this town feels for people, as long as that doesn't change, I think that makes people feel like everything is OK after all."