Improbable Fresno State wins CWS

OMAHA, Neb. -- The Wonderdogs' Cinderella party on the infield of Rosenblatt Stadium was still hopping, but Steve Detwiler made an early exit, retreating to the locker room behind the first-base dugout to stash away the choicest of souvenirs. "This ball," he said, reaching down into one of the outer pockets of his duffel bag, "this is the last out right here. The national championship ball."

Fresno State's sophomore right fielder had caught the final flyout in the College World Series' finale, then stuffed it deep into his back pocket before making his way to the dog-pile of teammates behind the pitchers' mound. Detwiler deserved to keep it; he went 4-for-4, with two homers, and drove in all six of Fresno's runs in the 6-1 clincher over Georgia. Playing with a fully torn tendon in his left thumb that he suffered on April 1 -- he will have surgery upon returning home -- he delivered the game of his life. The gravity of it had yet to set in. "This is surreal," he said, shaking his head and looking down at the white athletic tape on his hand.

Such disbelief had also overcome starting pitcher Justin Wilson, whose eight-inning, one-run, nine-strikeout tour de force was also the game of his life. The junior lefty, who had thrown 129 pitches on three days' rest, was concerned with a obtaining a souvenir of his own. Soon after walking in, he eyed the official CWS seats that lined the locker room and yelled, "We get to take home a chair!" Not until senior closer Brandon Burke burst into the room were the events that unfolded over the past two weeks put into perspective. What he yelled, in jest, happened to contain more than its share of truth:

"WE'RE THE WORST TEAM TO WIN, EVER!"

While there was no team in Omaha -- or the NCAA Regionals in Long Beach, Calif., or the Super Regionals in Tempe, Ariz., for that matter -- who could stop Fresno State, there was also no team in the CWS with less credentials than Fresno State.

The Bulldogs, whose name, as the T-shirts in the Rosenblatt crowd read, morphed "From Underdogs to Wonderdogs," were the lowest seed ever to reach a CWS, much less win one. The No. 4 slotting they received in the 64-team field was equivalent to a 13-16 seed in March Madness parlance, which means they were bigger long-shots than Villanova winning a basketball national title in 1988 or George Mason reaching a Final Four in 2006. With a final record of 47-31, Fresno finished with the most losses of any national champ in history. The Bulldogs began the season 8-11. They finished the regular season unranked and 89th in the RPI. They had zero first-round picks on their roster. They had nothing to lose entering the postseason, and they won everything.

In a news conference a day before this marathon, 12-day CWS began, salty Fresno coach Mike Batesole offered up one of the greatest undersells of all time in his opening statement. Of his Bulldogs, he said, "On the mound, you're not going to see a bunch of guys throwing 90 mph. You're not going to see a bunch of web gems on the field defensively. And offensively -- we just came back from Tempe, and if you've ever seen the Arizona State team take batting practice, they probably would lose 50 balls a day. And we're still working on our original bucket."

This, in retrospect, was as if Terry Francona had said at the outset of the 2007 World Series that you wouldn't see any quality starts from Josh Beckett, saves from Jonathan Papelbon or offense out of Mike Lowell. The 129th pitch of Wilson's outing on Wednesday, a called strike three on UGA center fielder Matt Cerione, clocked in at 91 mph. Series Most Outstanding Player Tommy Mendonca, Fresno's Brooks Robinson-like third-baseman, won the award as much with his fabulous glovework as he did with his bat -- and he happened to have tied a CWS record with four home runs. Baseball Tonight could compile an entire Web Gems with Mendonca's plays this week, let alone from the whole series.

And those weak Fresno bats? They ripped 14 home runs, the third-most all-time in a CWS, and the most since 1998. The Georgia pitching staff, which was burned for 31 runs in this best-of-three finals, would surely offer a different description of Fresno's hitters than Batesole did.

One thing that could not be hidden in the lead-up to the CWS was Fresno State's resiliency. Facing elimination against No. 6-ranked San Diego in the NCAA regional, it scraped out a 5-1 win to move on to Tempe. There, after falling 12-4 to Arizona State in the opener, the Bulldogs beat the third-ranked Sun Devils in two straight elimination games to earn a trip to Omaha. When all was said and done Fresno State was 6-0 with its backs against the wall, all of it accomplished in an exhausting road swing after playing its final home game on May 11. Batesole, slightly embellishing, likes to say that his club hit the road for 40 straight days. Following the title game, he said, "We haven't left anywhere the last five weekends where we weren't empty or done."