re: Who remembers keeping up with LSU CWS in baseball in the 80s?

I recall the last years of the Lamabe coaching staff and the first Bertman years. It was simple to attend a game. Walk up to the box office 10 minutes before first pitch, buy tickets for me and the boys and sit behind the dougout along the first base line. You could stretch out and there were hardly any people there. Then Bertman ruined it all by winning titles.

Baseball Weekly at Circle K

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basketball got way more TV coverage back then

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basketball STILL gets way more coverage today.

Skip couldn't have timed the rise of LSU baseball any better. LSU football was shite in the late 80's/early 90's. Basketball was still very popular (Shaq, Chris Jackson, etc) but under achieving before falling off a cliff in the mid-90s. LSU baseball gave LSU fans something to be proud of when the two biggest sports on campus were not great.

If the rise of LSU baseball had occurred in the early 2000's at the same time as the football program becoming a national power baseball would still be well supported...just probably not quite on the level it is now.

I remember going to the old Box when there were more pigeons in the rafters than fans in the seats - 78-80

We would be playing in softball tournament and have the game on the radio. Everyone at the game would sit by our dugout to listen also. Softball, beer and LSU on the radio. The good old days.

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Some slight corrections and additions to this post: We actually won the game 6-5. It was tied 3-3 in the top of the ninth when Long Beach scored two runs. I think we had 5 errors in the game including 2 in the top of the ninth. Mike Sirokta pitched a complete game for LSU. His pitch count was 157-159. Yes, you read that right.

In the bottom of the ninth, Armando Rios hit a two run double to tie the game at 5-5. Rios advanced to 3rd on a wild pitch. I could not believe they didn't walk Todd Walker and he did have 4 hits that day. Russ Johnson was on deck and he was an All-SEC shortstop, but Long Beach rolled the dice.

That was a late Friday afternoon game and LSU had to turn around and play Wichita State at noon on Saturday for the championship.

If you are young and have never seen the ending to this game, find it on Youtube and watch the bottom of the ninth. It will make you proud to be a Tiger. Watch the emotion on the face of Rios and Antonini. I tear up every time I watch it.

Edit: One more note I'll add. The announcer was Mike Patrick, who called so many great games over the years including the Earthquake game in 1988. He recently passed away. Steve Garvey was the color guy. Garvey was a former MLB player. Unfortunately, during Rios's double, Garvey stepped all over Patrick's call of the play. Color guys need to know when to shut up.

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Mike Sirotka gave everything he had in that game and then some.

Here the bottom of the 9th of the 93 Long Beach game

Thank you for posting this. I will take the memory of that game to my grave.

Started following circa 1981? I was 9 and my older brother was an equipment manager for Jack Lamabe's Tigers.

I remember how decrepit the stadium was, got to be a bat boy (didn't have college girls who wanted to be around the program then) but I hung out in the dugout for several games that year.

They weren't very good...but I was hooked on Tiger baseball from that first game.

Yep....hell I enjoyed listening to it on the radio as well as football. Some of the younger guys didn't like Jim but I grew up with him and still miss him calling games.....he was like a fan in a way that he would tell you how they were playing....lol...he didn't hide the excitement or the disdain.