By John Manuel
June 18, 2002

The first weekend of College World Series play didn't exact go as Baseball America predicted. Ray Tanner wasn't the only one happy about it.

Clemson coach Jack Leggett and Texas coach Augie Garrido weren't supposed to go 2-0. Didn't they read our preview? South Carolina's coach Tanner did.

Leggett and Garrido were certainly in good moods and poised to enjoy a couple of days off after taking control of their brackets. Leggett spent part of Monday shopping for CWS souvenirs at the tent city that crops up across from Rosenblatt Stadium every June. Naturally the College World Series hat he purchased had an orange Clemson paw on the left side, but there was nothing orange to eat where we ran into him, at Zesto's. Leggett didn't seem too upset.

Neither did Garrido after his Longhorns held off Stanford 8-7 in Monday's nightcap. But as the coach with three national championship rings knows all too well, going 2-0 to start in Omaha doesn't necessarily mean he will get fitted for another ring. All he has to do is ask Stanford, which won its first two games in the Series each of the last three years.

"(Being 2-0) means we have gained an advantage for now," Garrido said. "We have two days off, and because we have two days off and if we win the third game, we'll have extra pitchers; we have to capitalize. It's a little like having a runner at third and one out. We still have to bring it in."

Texas seems well positioned to move on. It showed against Rice that it could still win with small ball, with pitching, defense and an opportunistic offense. Teams would be wise to avoid using lefthanded pitchers against the Longhorns, who seem much more potent and powerful when freshman J.D. Reininger can face a lefthander.

Reininger, second on the team with 13 homers, was in a 1-for-20 slump that included 12 strikeouts (and four in four at-bats Saturday night) coming into Monday's game, then resorted to an old childhood trick to get his hitting stroke back.

"Coming off (what seemed like) a seven at-bat, seven strikeout game, things weren't looking so good," he said. "I had my dad go out and get whiffle balls and broomsticks, which is what I used to do when I wasn't seeing the ball well growing up. The curveballs thrown with the whiffle balls come at you from any direction."

Reininger was prepared against Stanford, leaving the Cardinal to face a Notre Dame team coming off an emotional, thrilling 5-3 victory against Rice.

The game was just another peak in a week of highs and lows for Notre Dame coach Paul Mainieri. In the last week, Mainieri won the super-regional at No. 1 Florida State, only to have his wife Kelly have to leave the series to fly back home to Toledo to be with her ailing father.

Mainieri and the Irish had to scramble more than the rest of the CWS field, as rain pushed their super-regional final back to last Monday. As Mainieri prepared for the biggest coaching accomplishment of his career, his father-in-law slipped away back home, and he couldn't share his most important moment with his wife and family. His father-in-law died over the weekend, and Mainieri left after Saturday's loss to be with his wife in Toledo on Sunday. He got back to Omaha for Monday's game and tried to put his feelings into words.

"Last weekend brought this all into perspective. You try to teach your players about life past baseball, and this was a good example. There are more important things in life, and life comes and life goes. We all have to deal with that at some point, and I had to deal with it this weekend.

"My wife may be able to come out here (Tuesday); I hope she may be able to experience some of this with me."

Irish senior Steve Stanley, whose passion and talent were only display for all to see Monday with diving catches, gutsy at-bats and breathtaking baserunning, said the Fighting Irish definitely had their coach in mind during their late comeback.

"This was the biggest win I've ever been a part of, and it's huge for us," he said. "We definitely wanted to do it for coach and for all he's gone through this week. And we also wanted to win for our own confidence level."

Notre Dame still hasn't gotten its bats going in the Series, Stanley reasoned, so perhaps some confidence from a win will get them going.

• Stats through eight games reveal the two 2-0 teams haven't exactly dominated in all phases. Rice, eliminated from the event, leads the field with a 3.63 ERA, but had just 13 hits in 67 at-bats and scored just four runs in two games. Clemson leads the field with 20 runs despite a .275 batting average, well below Georgia Tech's .402 mark. Texas ranks seventh in batting and tied for sixth in runs at .258 and with 10 runs, but its 4.00 ERA is good enough for third--and good enough for 2-0.

• Last year saw the longest CWS in terms of time of game, as each contest averaged 3 hours, 25 minutes. Games were going at a quicker pace in 2002, with the per-game average at 3:10. Both of Monday's games came in under three hours.

• Omaha fans proved they could and would come out in record numbers whether or not Nebraska was on the field. Monday's contests saw a crowd of 24,971, the second-largest in CWS history. Only Sunday's session of 25,581 surpassed the mark. Overall attendance for the Series is 121,249, an average of 24,250 per session.

• Rosenblatt Stadium keeps getting tweaked, and this year's changes included deeper dimensions, with 375-foot power alleys and a 408-foot center-field depth. The bigger gaps have resulted in 30 doubles, putting the all-time record of 58 (set in 15 games in 1985) within reach.