Who would have expected the week of June 13 could be this loaded with major sporting events?
Thanks to the NHL’s elongated ill-fated Winter Olympic break, the Stanely Cup Finals are just getting started, the NBA Finals will be done by Sunday, the U.S. Men’s Open Golf Championship tees off Thursday in Brookline, MA, (and all those LIV players have some explaining to do!), and the NCAA’s College Baseball World Series begins Friday in Omaha, NE.
As we approach the 10th anniversary of the demolition of Omaha’s old Rosenblatt Stadium, I’m missing that old ballyard a bit. It was games there that first piqued my interest in the college baseball. It was the 1987 CWS, in particular that resonates, not because of any vivid memories from the games, but rather the name of one player, in particular.
That player was Oklahoma State University secondbaseman Brad Beanblossom. Though only a freshman, as memory serves Beanblossom batted leadoff during the CWS and was a critical component of the Cowboys’ run to the championship game against Stanford (the Cardinal won, 9-5, to complete an undefeated stay in Omaha). Beanblossom played so well he earned All-Tournament Team honors, something his more recognizable teammate and owner of a 58-game hitting streak that season, Robin Ventura, did not accomplish.
Through happenstance, I saw Beanblossom play in person later that summer. I was the official scorer for a men’s baseball team, Detroit ITM, and our squad qualified for the National Amateur Baseball Federation (NABF) Major Division World Series in Louisville, KY, that August. I was stunned when I received the lineup card before ITM’s opener against Louisville Star Drywall and saw Beanblossom penciled into the leadoff spot. Surely there was not another baseball playing Beanblossom out there, was there? Turns out there wasn’t. He was a Louisville native and, like many college players, returned home to play during the summer months.
Beanblossom finished runner up twice that summer, as Star Drywall fell to Cincinnati Reading Taxi, 8-5. How did ITM do, you ask? We lost our first two games and were home in time for Sunday dinner;-)
Walking the Monster
Fresh off my high school graduation in early June 1985, my dad announced he’d secured a pass to the men’s U.S. Open Golf Championship at Oakland Hills’ South Course in suburban Detroit. I was able to attend Friday’s tournament play. It was, to my recollection, the first professional golf tournament I’d ever attended. As one might expect at a major championship, the field was a varitable who’s who of golf. Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Lee Trevino, Fuzzy Zoeller, Hale Irwin, Tom Watson, and Tom Kite, were all easily recognizable to this less-than-part-time golf fan.
The real star of the week was being able to walk the course that Ben Hogan dubbed “the monster” when he won the Open three decades earlier. The course, despite the crush of spectators, was immaculate and so very, very green. And, yes, despite it being trampled down by the gallery, the rough was every bit as long and thick as the folks on television like to tell us.
The big story from this Open was the play of a relatively unknown Taiwanese player, T.C. Chen, who led after 18, 36, and 54 holes and recorded the first-ever double-eagle in U.S. Open history. It was an inglorious end for Chen, who scored a 7-over-par, 77 on the final day, including a double-hit of a wedge shot in the deep rough of the fifth hole en route to a quadruple bogey that turned a four-stroke lead into a tie with eventual champion, Andy North. Chen wound up in a 3-way tie for second.