OMAHA, Neb. — If anyone knows what to expect from LSU baseball fans pouring into town this weekend for the College World Series championship series, it’s LSU superfan Chris Guillot.
His succinct appraisal at Thursday’s pep rally at the Tigers’ team hotel?
“The zoo starts tonight.”
You could say Guillot is the keeper of that zoo, the man who roams the stands whether at Alex Box Stadium or here in Omaha rallying the faithful with chants of “Go!” answered by “Tigers!”
Or, “Geaux” and “Tigers,” if you prefer.Omaha is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year as the permanent home of the College World Series. In that time, a few things have changed: the ballpark where the games are played used to be called Rosenblatt Stadium, south of downtown next door to the actual Omaha zoo. Now they play at Charles Schwab Field, a modern 24,500-seat venue surrounded by bars, hotels and restaurants on the north side of downtown, just a couple of Jared Jones home runs from the Missouri River.
One thing hasn’t changed here in a long time: LSU fans swamp Omaha when the Tigers play. Heck, a lot of them come to Omaha when the Tigers aren’t here, too.During bracket play of this year’s CWS, LSU fans haven’t always dominated at the gate as much as they’ve dominated the Jell-O shot challenge at a bar across the street from Charles Schwab Field. Arkansas had about a 2-to-1 edge on Tiger fans last Saturday for their opener, a game the Tigers won 4-1.
LSU had more fans than UCLA did in their rain-interrupted game that started Monday night but finished Tuesday in a 9-5 Tigers win, but hey, that’s UCLA. College baseball has to compete with the Dodgers and surfing for fans out in SoCal.For Wednesday’s scarcely definable 6-5 LSU win over Arkansas — a game marked by three Tigers’ comebacks and multiple Razorbacks’ miscues — things evened out. But for this weekend’s championship series between LSU and Coastal Carolina (the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, school has an enrollment of about 10,300 students to LSU’s 39,600) expect LSU to have more fans in the stands and around town.
One thing’s for sure: In my reporting from Omaha, I haven’t come across a giant fiberglass Chanticleer (Coastal Carolina’s fierce rooster mascot) on a flatbed trailer to rival the Mardi Gras Mike the Tiger made for this trip.
