Dazzling Buffet Has Cowboys On Brink Of CWS Final

OMAHA–The night before the most important start of his life, Tyler Buffett was sitting at a dinner table, eating green-chili cheeseburgers with a billionaire.

Bizarre? No. Quite the opposite. It was all so cordial. Casual.

“You’re the guy who plays baseball,” Warren Buffett said slyly as he walked into the Carter Lake, Iowa, home Tyler and his family are renting just for the College World Series.

“Yes,” Tyler replied to Warren, “yes, I am.”

Warren Buffett, of course, is the 85-year-old chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. of Omaha and is widely considered one of the wealthiest men in the world. Tyler Buffett, on the other hand, is a far less wealthy junior righthander for Oklahoma State, whose late grandfather, George, happened to be Warren’s first cousin.

It’s a distant relationship—Tyler is not even sure what to call it—and the two had never met before Sunday night. But when Warren heard Tyler’s Cowboys were one of the eight teams bound for the College World Series—played in his backyard in Omaha—he reached out to Tyler’s parents, John and Donna, and arranged a meeting.

GAME AT A GLANCE

Turning Point: Oklahoma State scored the game’s lone run in the fourth inning. Donnie Walton hit a leadoff double and came around to score when Garrett Benge followed with an RBI single. One run was all the Cowboys needed, as they became the first team in CWS history to win back-to-back 1-0 games. The Hero: Righthander Tyler Buffett delivered yet another outstanding pitching performance for Oklahoma State, holding Arizona to three hits and two walks in eight scoreless innings. In three starts in the NCAA Tournament, he has allowed just two runs in 22 innings. You Might Have Missed: Arizona second baseman Cody Ramer led off the bottom of the first inning with a fly ball deep to center fielder and looked to have an extra-base hit, until Oklahoma State center fielder Ryan Sluder tracked the ball down and laid out to make a diving catch just short of the warning track. Box Score Highlights

Tyler almost didn’t recognize the man when he walked through the door of his rented house Sunday—he had only ever seen him on TV, in newspapers and in old family photos. But then he saw Warren’s trademark round glasses, his silver hair and welcoming grin, and when the billionaire joined the Buffets at the dinner table, Tyler said it felt like he was talking to his grandpa again.

“We were just eating chili cheeseburgers, and he was drinking his Cherry Coke like he likes, and it was really like we were just family hanging out,” Tyler said. “His wife, Astrid, was out in the backyard fishing with my little sister, so it was much more of a family occasion than most people would probably think.”

As they exchanged stories and dug deeper into their lineage, what struck Tyler most about Warren was his sheer love for the game of baseball. Warren talked about memorabilia he owns, the gifts he still has from Stan Musial and Bob Gibson and the countless other baseball relics he’s given away to other people.

“I definitely haven’t met many people who know as much about baseball history as he does,” Tyler said.

Perhaps it’s fitting, then, that just one day after he met Warren, the younger Buffett would make baseball history of his own.

With Warren surely watching, Tyler Buffett took the TD Ameritrade Park mound on Monday night and threw a career-high eight shutout innings against Arizona, allowing just three hits, walking two and striking out six in a dazzling outing. Buffett outdueled an also-stellar Bobby Dalbec, who struck out a career-best 12 for Arizona, and almost singlehandedly propelled Oklahoma State to a 1-0 win. The victory put the Cowboys one win away from advancing to the CWS finals and—where the history comes in—it marked the first time a team has ever opened the Series with back-to-back 1-0 wins.

In one sense, that feat shows the difficulty of scoring at the cavernous TD Ameritrade, but it also highlights the proficiency of Oklahoma State’s pitching and defense, two areas where the Cowboys have thrived all season.

The Cowboys’ stout pitching staff has yet to allow a run in Omaha, with ace Thomas Hatch preceding Buffett with a shutout in the CWS opener against UC Santa Barbara. Hatch hasn’t allowed a run in 23 NCAA tournament innings. Buffett, the No. 2 starter, has allowed two runs in 22 NCAA tournament innings. The staff as a whole has yielded just six total runs in seven NCAA tournament games.

Just as importantly, the Cowboys have played exceptional defense and continued to do so Monday night. The very first out Oklahoma State recorded Monday came via an acrobatic, SportsCenter Top-10-worthy dive by center fielder Ryan Sluder near the warning track.

Half man… Half amazing!

Oklahoma State’s Ryan Sluder makes an absolutely BONKERS catch! #SCTop10 https://t.co/DfqzPYE0V4

— NCAA Baseball (@NCAACWS) June 21, 2016

Shortstop Donnie Walton and second baseman J.R. Davis turned a crucial 6-4-3 double play in the eighth inning to record the final two outs of Buffett’s outing and send him walking triumphantly off the mound. And third baseman Garrett Benge, who drove in the game’s lone run with an RBI single in the fourth, made an acrobatic diving play of his own to record the second out in the ninth. Umpires initially ruled first baseman Dustin Williams had his foot off the bag when he received Benge’s throw but—controversially—the officials reversed the call after meeting on it. Ruling aside, it didn’t take away from the athleticism and arm strength displayed by Benge on the play.

“I knew if I was out there making the pitches like I could, the guys behind me were going to make the plays,” Buffett said afterward. “Everybody’s talking about Sluder’s catch and Benge’s play, but Jon Littell made a bunch of plays out in left field for a few innings. Just everybody—J.R. and Donnie making a double play, Dustin picking the ball, staying on the bag—just unbelievable plays.

“As long as me and Hatch and Jensen (Elliott) and Trey (Cobb) make the pitches, there’s no doubt the guys behind us are going to be making plays.”

There was also no doubt that Buffett was making the pitches he needed to Monday. The righthander worked 88-92 mph, using a four-seamer, two-seamer and a cutter. He routinely mixed in a 78-80 mph curveball, throwing it for called strikes and getting hitters to chase it out of the zone, and he commanded a straight changeup, particularly to lefties, as a fourth offering.

“He was pretty nails,” catcher Collin Theroux said. “He was attacking the strike zone. I think he had maybe one or two walks. But his misses were good. His misses were where we wanted them to be, and he just filled up the zone with four pitches, and that’s all we asked from him, and that’s all he does, and we played great, great defense behind him today.”

Primarily a reliever in his Oklahoma State career, Buffett has blossomed in a starting role this postseason after switching roles with Trey Cobb, who closed Monday’s game out of the bullpen. With the command of four pitches, Buffett has a starter’s arsenal, and he said Monday that he has the same mindset whether he’s starting a game or finishing it.

Drafted in the seventh round by the Astros two weeks ago, Buffett will soon be earning a profit from playing the game he loves, assuming that he signs. It’s possible that he, too, could add to the Buffett family’s legacy of wealth—albeit from pitching, not necessarily from investing.

“Tyler is from the side of the family that throws a 95-mile-an-hour fastball,” Warren Buffett wrote in an email to the Omaha World-Herald last week. “And I am from the side that throws an 8-mile-an-hour fastball (with a following wind).”

Tyler said after Monday’s game that when he and Warren spoke the night before, they didn’t chat about the specifics of his baseball career. They didn’t talk business, either. Instead, they talked about family. They tried to figure out who knows whom, tried to see which parts of the Buffett family tree are intertwined. The night provided a chance to connect. From Albuquerque, New Mexico, Tyler had never even been to Omaha before the College World Series. The green chili Tyler ate Sunday night is an Albuquerque staple, and he shared it with Omaha’s most famed and influential denizen at a house just down the road from Omaha’s—and college baseball’s—Mecca.

Though Tyler is a first-time visitor, Omaha—where the Buffett name is royalty—already has a familiar feel.

“The last two nights, at least for an hour or two, I’ve gone home and been able to just be with my family,” Tyler said—before correcting himself.

“Not home—I’ve gone to that house.”

Under the College World Series lights, pitching in Warren Buffett’s backyard, Tyler Buffett certainly looked at home.