Baseball and recruiting top vacation

Published 12:00 am Thursday, July 6, 2000

What an outstanding athletic and outstanding conference, the SEC.

My vacation was cranked up in style about the same time LSU was making its College World Series move, and you know how dramatic the Tigers’ three-game sweep to further CWS fame went – they were simply fantastic, that’s all.

One somebody remarked to me one of the days my wife and I were in Branson that &uot;that bunch from Baton Rouge catches on fire at (College) World Series time.&uot; You have to admit that that fellow from wherever has a point. The record speaks for itself; LSU has won &uot;only&uot; five CWS championships since 1991.

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Brad Cresse hit the single that moved LSU to college baseball prominence once again in the 2000 title game, and I hit the road the next day – June 18.

Trailing as they did against Stanford in the last game of the World Series, the Tigers looked a mite inept in the early innings, and their best season hitter, Cresse, had gone 1-for-12 and struck out eight times. Then came two Tiger homers and the game was tied at five.

You know all this, but let me have my post-vacation fun talkin’ about it.

At any rate, team captain Blair Barbier called his teammates together in the dugout for a conference, and evidently it had a bearing.

Ryan Theriot was on second when a slumping Cresse smote a solid single that brought Theriot home with the winning (6-5) run, and 52-17 LSU had done it again under super skipper Skip Bertman. His team was a hitting team as well as a pitching one. Think about it – the Tigers did their thing on the mound and at the plate.

And ensured that the vacation sendoff for my wife and me was, like, right on!

4 Athlon Sports Magazine has an interesting slant on the 2000 Southeastern Conference football race. Well, not really, because the expected guesses of Florida, Tennessee and Alabama at the top, and Ole Miss, South Carolina and Vanderbilt at the bottom surfaced.

The top three look okay with me, but I have to wonder about Ole Miss being No. 10 in the 12-team SEC. And they have the LSU Tigers No. 9, whom I understand look on paper to be about that caliber.

Again, it’s just guessing I don’t care who’s doing it. In the Athlon Magazine case, it was easy to go with the Florida Gators, whose fortunes were enhanced by a recruiting class believed by many to be the finest in the land. So you can understand when Athlon put them on top in the land and SEC.

Florida, in fact, inked the top prospect nationally in quarterback in Brock Berlin out of Shreveport, La. He stands 6’2&uot;, weighs 190 pounds and is believed to possess all the tools to be able to step right in at Florida. In the same state, Miami signed 6’2′ linebacker D. J. Williams out of Concord, Calif., so there. Florida also raked in top defensive prospect Cory Bailey out of Hialeah, Fla.

Tennessee grabbed off several top recruits according to Athlon. In fact, five of the top 50 nationally. Alabama supposedly also inked five. Florida got four.

Georgia and Ole Miss scratched, each with one highly-regarded Top 100 recruit. Ole Miss’ was No. 98, snaring offensive lineman Doug Buckles, 6’5&uot;, 275, of Madison. Georgia did get a No. 33-regarded running back out of Sacramento, CA. He’s a 210 pounder that stands 5’11&uot;.

Conference-wise, here’s how the 12 SEC schools ranked in their &uot;family&uot; recruiting wars: Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, Auburn, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi State, Kentucky, LSU, Ole Miss, South Carolina and Vanderbilt.