Tigers, Royals enjoy colorful pregame in Omaha
Jeffrey Flanagan and Robert Falkoff
@FlannyMLBOMAHA, Neb. -- In a colorful pregame ceremony that celebrated professional and collegiate baseball, the eight College World Series teams -- plus the Royals and Tigers -- lined up to form a perfect diamond before the first regular season MLB game in the state of Nebraska. The Royals went on to a 7-3 win in the rubber game of the series.
The CWS teams -- Arkansas, Auburn, Florida State, Louisville, Michigan, Mississippi State, Texas Tech and Vanderbilt -- marched onto the field one by one at TD Ameritrade Park to the tune of the respective school fight songs. The Tigers and Royals then filled in along the first- and third-base lines with the managers and starters being announced individually.
There were eight simultaneous ceremonial first pitches, as a representative from each school threw to four Tigers and four Royals.
¡°It goes right up there with my two All-Star wins and that¡¯s very special to me," Royals manager Ned Yost said. "I was the first manager to win a Major League game in Nebraska ever. Think how cool that it is. I¡¯ll have that going for me the rest of my life.
¡°It was fun. The energy level was fun. When you have energy like that you can just sense it. I had to stop and look around to really take it in. And every time I turned around, I saw Royals jerseys and Royals hats. It was really neat to come and play a good game for our fans. This win means more to me because of that than breaking the streak. I just wanted us to put on a good show for our fans.¡±
Alex Gordon, Nebraska¡¯s native son, who couldn¡¯t start because of a compressed nerve, caught one of the ceremonial first pitches, along with three other Royals with Nebraska connections: Jake Diekman, who was born in Nebraska, Nicky Lopez, who played at Creighton, and Whit Merrifield, who won the 2010 College World Series for South Carolina with a walk-off hit.
¡°It was a great crowd. It was great to see a sellout," Merrifield said. "I thought they did a great job putting this on. Even flew my old college coach out to watch the game.
"We saw [the college players] a little bit in the tunnel. It was cool to come back. It was a different stadium and different feel, but just talking [about it], reliving it, talking to people, people asking questions about what that night was like, it was cool to relive it.¡±
Gordon caught a ceremonial first pitch from Florida State¡¯s Drew Mendoza to a huge cheer from the fans.
Although he was warming up in the bullpen when the eight college teams took the field with the two Major League teams in a pregame ceremony, Tigers starter Matthew Boyd could sense how special the moment must have been for the college players.
¡°I have to think that was a really special opportunity that they had,¡± Boyd said. ¡°Baseball is so pure at the college level. The Draft is over and it¡¯s a bunch of selfless guys trying to represent the name on the front of the jersey the best they can. To have had the opportunity that we all had in coming together like this tonight is a very cool thing.¡±
Lopez picked a great venue to launch his first Major League home run. The Royals' second baseman ripped a line drive off Boyd in the second inning into the right-field bullpen, the same stadium where Lopez played collegiately for Creighton. He received a huge ovation as he rounded the bases, and Lopez couldn¡¯t help but smile a bit as he reached home plate.
Lopez hit one home run at TD Ameritrade Park in 75 college games -- it was in his last game here against Nebraska in 2016. And that home run was in almost the same spot -- into the right-field corner. Lopez hit two collegiate home runs overall.