How 'Bout Dem Dawgs!

OMAHA BOUND!

After the SEC tournament nobody gave Ron Polk and his Diamond Dawgs much of a chance to go any further toward the College World Series. But baseball folk began to take notice when in the Florida State Regional the Dawgs cleaned the Seminoles' plow -- a little A&M reference there -- get it -- cleaned plow. Oh well, I digress.

After Larry Templeton withdrew the MSU bid to host a Regional, he quickly resubmitted our little old application to offer Polk-Dement as a site for a Super Regional. The NCAA, perhaps remembering times when we had packed houses for regional tourneys, decided the Bullies deserved the honor of hosting Clemson rather than our traveling to that little A&M institution.

And Dawgs fans responded with their big and little butts sitting and sweating in those bleachers, setting an all-time Super Regional attendance mark on Friday and breaking that record on Saturday. There was some cooking going on in that Left Field Lounge, and there was some Dawg cooking going on on the diamond or rather some Tiger cooking as it turned out.

I had three TV's on ESPN in the house, and Jim Ellis was a guest in my backyard -- not really, but I am sure that the neighbors enjoyed his broadcast of the game and had no problem hearing the game on my outside radio. Nobody was home but I -- Melinda was in Aberdeen and Oxford and points south -- more about that later. Anyway, there was no one with whom I could celebrate. So the victory party was limited to me, Floyd my cat and a bottle of Tilburg's Dutch Brown Ale. The three of us should get together more often.

Now I am in a quandry. At this writing the mighty Rebels are 0-1 in their quest for a CWS berth. I have mixed emotions. On the one hand I don't want anything good to ever happen to Ole Miss, and on the other it would be nice if by some quirk of fate, the Dawgs could meet them one more time for all of the marbles.

I suppose I shouldn't dislike them so, so much since they do represent our great state as well, but in all my years on this planet and being a Dawg fan, I have just about gotten my craw full of the Rebels. I don't like Ole Miss. I don't like Oxford -- even though I have enjoyed a few John Grisham novels. I don't even like Lafayette County. Melinda, as I mentioned above, was in Oxford yesterday afternoon and upon her return to the confines of DeSoto County, I made her hose off before I would let her in the house. I can take no chances of Ole Miss infestation in my house. Maybe I am a little overboard, but I bet there are some out there who dislike them much, much more.

Anyway, best of luck to the Dawgs next weekend. We will either play North Carolina or South Carolina, depending on who wins that Super Regional.

It's great to be a DAWG!

Please, please Sylvester take notice.



One really gets the feeling that the glory days may be back -- at least the Bullies are one of the eight best college baseball teams in the country. Of course you all know that this will be the 8th CWS for State and the first appearance since 1998.