There are places in the sports lexicon that have a certain air of reverence when coming to mind, even more so when mentioned. Wrigley Field, Lambeau Field, Augusta National, and Indianapolis. Those are all places that when they get brought up in conversation, they mean something.
Omaha, home of the Men’s College World Series, is firmly nestled alongside those places, whether you are talking about its iconic history at Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium or the current venue of Charles Schwab Field.
The exchange
in Field of Dreams is well known – “Is this heaven? No, it’s Iowa?” But if there is indeed a baseball heaven, it’s probably something a lot like how Omaha, Neb. will be within a day or so as fans converge for the CWS. And interestingly enough, Omaha is a very short drive from Iowa itself.
Just getting to Omaha is an experience in itself. Once you get there, anything else that happens is usually icing on the cake. If you want to see baseball players act like kids on Christmas morning, just hang out near them during their walk-through if they are CWS-first timers.
The specialness of Omaha even begins depending on how you get there.
I was fortunate enough to be there in 2006 when Georgia was in the College World Series. With more flights per day at the time being from Atlanta to Kansas City compared to Omaha, flying into KC made more sense. That means on the way from Kansas City to Omaha, it can actually be a fun trip with stops, if desired, like touring Kauffman Stadium, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, and the Dwight Eisenhower Presidential Library.
From there, it’s a mostly desolate drive, but one that will make you feel at home if you enjoy the drive from Macon to Savannah on I-16.
But like an obelisk rising up over the desert, downtown Omaha awaits as you make your way toward Council Bluffs, Iowa and across the Missouri River. Back when the CWS was at Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium, it was one of the first things you encountered after crossing into Nebraska on I-80, a gleaming emotion that you had arrived at somewhere special.
The College World Series is much like the Indy 500 in that many there are fans of the game of baseball itself.
Sure, each team’s fans travel there too, but others nearby know how much this event means. Over the course of the CWS, locals adopt teams as their own….even if the week before they knew zero names of the players making Omaha their home for the week.
As Georgia fans sadly know, that can be a bad thing if you are playing against an underdog team such as the 2008 Nike bat debacle.
But it’s not just locals that love this event. I still vividly recall seeing Mississippi State fans tailgating outside Rosenblatt Stadium in 2006, and the Maroon Bulldogs were not even playing in the College World Series that year. Fans like those were there not for a team, but because they loved the event itself and what it means – that it’s a pure celebration of baseball.
Of course, this is the same city that makes you think of steak. And Omaha veterans will tell you that The Drover is legendary (I can attest to this personally), a place where at least two associated with UGA in 2006 ate at not once, but twice.
Omaha is indeed special. Georgia certainly heads there with a goal to win it all this week. But regardless, if you are one of eight teams that’s there this week, it’s a perfect slice of baseball heaven.
Go Dawgs!
