On Wednesday afternoon, a nice elderly lady at the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame showed off a 2011 World Series ring and talked about the rally squirrel. If the story is familiar, fair enough. If not, the 2011 Cardinals won the World Series in unlikely fashion about the time that an eastern grey squirrel mysteriously showed up on the field. The Rally Squirrel (who really deserved a first name) became the unlikely talisman of brilliance.
That’s baseball.
A team gets lucky and a squirrel becomes somehow the de facto cause of a World Series title. The Rally Squirrel is on those Cardinal World Series rings. It’s all good fun… until you’re on the other side.
Wednesday evening, Arkansas baseball stumbled under another ladder. Walked across the path of another black cat. Found a way to finish its 12th trip to Omaha still on 0 College World Series titles.
Baseball curses are like unholy ghosts. Some claim they don’t exist at all. Some seek to explain the apparitions as some sort of logical trick — sort of the opposite of the rally squirrel. Something unusual happens and Arkansas ends up on the other side of it. Purely a statistical coincidence.
People with 2 eyes, a brain and a heart probably know better. Arkansas baseball is (still) cursed.
The Curse on Wednesday
In an elimination battle with LSU, Arkansas found a way to lose. The Hogs first had to find a way to win multiple times, which they did with their stereotypical clutch play and iron nerves.
Arkansas jumped to a 1-0 lead, rallied back from a 2-1 deficit to claim a 3-2 lead, and then rallied against from a 3-3 tie in the top of the 9th inning to take a 5-3 lead into the fateful bottom of the 9th inning. Runners at first and second, 1 out. And that’s when chaos struck on 3 consecutive defensive plays.
Here’s the kicker. None of these plays were scored as errors. All were plays that Arkansas makes relatively routinely. This just happened to be the exception… on 3 plays in a row.
On the first play, LSU’s Steven Milam ripped a hard ground ball to shortstop Wehiwa Aloy. Aloy did move a step or 2 into the shortstop-third base hole as he fielded the ball. But he grabbed it cleanly and off the bat, Arkansas fans everywhere had to think “double play.”
Aloy grabbed it and instead of turning to throw to second to start the double play, fired in front of him to third base for a force play on the lead runner.
Aloy has been arguably the best player in the nation. He’s made a million plays. But it’s the one that he didn’t try to make that begins the nightmare. At the time, it seemed like a relatively heads up play. Two out, still 2 on. Aloy made the safe play, pushed Arkansas one step closer to a Thursday rematch. Except that since that rematch will never happen, it looks dicey in the rearview mirror.
But Aloy’s decision to take 1 out instead of seeking 2 wouldn’t be talked about today, had play 2 not occurred.
Luis Hernandez smacked a line drive to left field. Hit hard, but essentially straight at Arkansas left fielder Charles Davalan. If there’s one play that’s evidence of a curse, this was it. This is a play that Davalan makes probably not 99 times out of 100. More like 999 times out of 1,000 or 9,999 times out of 10,000. On Wednesday night, the Omaha turf monster got him.
Davalan broke back, as outfielders are routinely taught. But this wasn’t a fly ball, it was a line drive a step or 2 to his left. As he switched directions, he slipped. Or was tripped by the LSU ghost. Or something.
Falling to the ground, he realized that the ball was still close enough to be catchable even from the ground. He thrust his glove at it, only for the ball to slide above his glove and plunk him somewhere in the vicinity of the right shoulder. And LSU had tied the game at 5.
Hernandez’s hit was scored a double, but Davalan’s misplay is the one that will go in the Hall of Horrors at Arkansas alongside the pop-up that no one claimed in 2018.
But fate wasn’t done. Arkansas had rallied twice in this game. Even after all this, a third rally in extra inning was still plausible. Enter play 3.
LSU’s Jared Jones lined a ball toward center field. Last line of defense — Cam Kozeal. Kozeal timed his jump, leaped him in the air… and saw Jones’s liner trickle off the top of his glove and into center field. Of the 3 plays, this was the toughest to make. Kozeal would have robbed Jones had he caught the ball. But he missed by a literal inch. LSU celebrated and Arkansas wondered how on Earth, because who wouldn’t wonder.
Explanations and Second Guesses
The skeptic can explain. LSU didn’t give in. Their runners sold Aloy out of the double play. The ball that Hernandez hit screwballed away from Davalan, and then Jones dumped a line drive into center field. That’s savvy baseball and it’s why the Tigers are in the CWS Finals.
The scientist can explain. Dave Van Horn might have waited a batter too late to make a pitching change, leaving a lefty in to face Hernandez. Or maybe Davalan should have been positioned another step to the left, where he wouldn’t have stumbled. Or Kozeal might have been a step shallow on Jones’s ball. Defense is the hardest thing to fit in a stat sheet, but it reared its head.
But the realist knows better. The curse is alive… and will be alive until Arkansas strangles it to death some sweet day in Fayetteville. Until then, Aloy, Davalan, Kozeal and Van Horn dutifully raged against the end of hope. It’s the opposite of the Rally Squirrel. And if there aren’t museums for that sort of thing, there probably should be.
College World Series Notebook: Black cats, walking under ladders, being Arkansas… Saturday Down South.
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