Hoover reigns as SEC host

Published 6:23 am Sunday, May 29, 2016

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Much of the talk at the SEC baseball tournament is that it might move from its comfortable Hoover, Alabama, digs after this year.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Smarter minds than us will figure that out, probably with a keen eye on the cash register.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But it reminds me that 25 years ago they tried to play the fool thing at LSU.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It was a bad idea.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It wasn’t LSU’s fault.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But somebody sure did something to tick off Mother Nature that week — and it got even worse the following week when LSU also hosted an NCAA regional.</span>

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<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It was one of those three-week weather patterns in which the rain bands would come in off the Gulf to soak you for several hours, tease you with a little sunshine, then rinse and repeat.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">So the SEC tournament from hell had a sequel that just about drowned everybody.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">By Friday night of the SEC tournament it was obvious it was never going to be finished in its original format.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It remains one of my favorite moments at the old Alex Box Stadium.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The Fourth Estate was holed up out in the media trailer way out right field, basically with nothing to do while, we were told, tournament officials were hammering out a revised bracket, hopefully one that might allow the teams to play under water.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">LSU’s Skip Bertman and Mississippi State’s Ron Polk, for some reason, were evidently in charge of coming up with the revised bracket.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The two of them, looking a bit weather beaten, burst into the media trailer and posted the new edict on the wall and passed out copies, as I recall, without any real comment.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But it wasn’t long before the media noticed something.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The key flaw in the reworked masterpiece was that it basically eliminated Auburn from winning the title while the War Eagles were doing nothing more sinister than taking shelter at their hotel.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">That was a key setback. There were only four teams left by this point, and the other three were already assured of making the NCAA tournament the following week.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Auburn needed the automatic bid from the SEC tournament to continue its season.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">As we double-checked our math, somebody was dispatched to call head coach Hal Baird at the Auburn team hotel.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">That someone happened to be me.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Baird was in his room, it turned out, and I delivered the bad news to him, laying out the no-win scenario.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">There was a long pause on the other end of the line before I got what I thought was the best quote ever from a coach.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“That’s unfortunate,” Baird said calmly.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The best-ever quote didn’t last long.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">We media demanded another audience with Bertman and Polk, when it was pointed out that Auburn had been — how’s a delicate way to put this? — treated somewhat unfairly.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Bertman looked down at the new bracket.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“Well, of course they are,” he said.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">They went back to the drawing board, came up with something that gave Auburn a fighting chance and shortened the rest of the games to seven innings.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">So it inched along, a couple of innings at a time before another shower band rolled in and the outfield turned to mush.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Auburn eventually went peacefully and somehow Sunday arrived with LSU and Florida mud wrestling for the championship, which was even more meaningless than usual.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">One catch: Florida could win the title by winning the first game. If LSU won the first, the two would have to play again for the title.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Not saying LSU threw the first game, which Florida won 8-4 to put the tournament out of its misery, but Bertman didn’t seem overly upset afterward, though he put on a sour face.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“Personally I’m glad the tournament from hell is over,” Bertman said. “There wasn’t a whole lot to be gained from playing again.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">And that was just the tune-up act for the following week.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The NCAA regionals were a six-team affairs back then, and you didn’t need weather messing with them.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">So that week, when you pulled into the Alex Box parking lot, there was a hand-lettered sign that read: “Shhhh. Don’t even say the R word.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It didn’t work.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The same pattern continued, only worse.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">And it when it wasn’t raining, the sun would come out in full bloom, basically baking the place in humidity for a couple of hours before resuming the downpours.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">With a couple days work, they kept spreading the outfield with sand, wood chips, pea gravel, cat food and who knows what all.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">All it did was add the aroma of a sewer to the experience.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">They called in the heavy artillery, apparently on loan from the oil fields, huge tanker trucks armed with 100-yard, foot-diameter hoses that would literally suck the water out of the ground.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">On the Thursday morning of the regional those things those sucked up 8,000 gallons, Friday they gulped up another 6,000.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">All it did was turn the outfield into goop piled upon muck on top of a swamp.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It was the Biblical plagues of Egypt. When the tarp would be rolled back, there’d be worms the size of moccasins flopping around.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Did I mention that the infield was fine? The old Alex Box infield crown was probably two feet high or so above the rest.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It was high and dry, basically dusty.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">So while bloop hits were plugging in the outfield and the poor fielders were slipping and sloshing around like sloths to get to them, base runners were flying around the paths like a 4×100 relay team.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It didn’t need umpires — it needed lifeguards.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">In the end, it ended only one day late, with LSU beating then-USL in the finals to advance to the College World Series.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It was raining when the Tigers got to Omaha.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But two weeks later Bertman won LSU’s first national championship.</span>

<span class="R~sep~AZaphdingbatdot7pt">l</span>

<span style="font-weight: bold;" class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">Scooter Hobbs</span> <span class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">covers LSU</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">athletics. Email him at</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyEditors~sep~endnote">shobbs@americanpress.com</span>

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<p class="p1">Follow Scooter Hobbs on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/ScooterAmPress">twitter.com/ScooterAmPress</a>

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