OMAHA, Neb. – He may be gone, but the late Augie Garrido is hardly forgotten.
The former Texas baseball coach, who won two national titles with the Longhorns and three with Cal State Fullerton during 15 career trips to the College World Series, was anchored as NCAA-CWS by Omaha Inc. “All Star” before Texas-Notre Friday’s Dame- Game. He died in 2018 at the age of 79.
Appropriately, Oklahoma’s head coach Skip Johnson — Garrido’s pitching coach for 10 years — took his staff to Garrido’s favorite Italian restaurant in Omaha, Lo Sole Mio, which will close its doors on July 2 after more than 30 years in business.
Johnson still gushes about everything he learned from Garrido – nothing more meaningful than playing one game at a time.
More:Texas first baseman Ivan Melendez wins the Dick Howser Trophy
“I really didn’t know what I was doing as a baseball coach,” Johnson said upon moving to Texas from Navarro Junior College. “And by being with Coach Garrido and Coach (Tommy) Harmon and listening to what they talk about, I’ve learned a lot about teaching guys in that environment. It’s really just a matter of pitch. And control yourself.”
Golden:Former Texas star Adrian Alaniz, now at Sinton, is an aspiring coach
Garrido was the first coach to win multi-team national championships and is the second All Star to be included in an annual event, after the late USC head coach Rod Dedeaux.
Garrido’s honor was accepted at the stadium by his wife Jeannie along with several family members and a close friend. His name was placed on a bronze plaque in the stadium near Gate 1.
Garrido’s career spanned six decades and he was the only coach to win multiple national titles at more than one school.
Like brother, like brother? Ivan Melendez’s parents, Raul and Julie, both attended the Dick Howser Trophy ceremony along with his two brothers, Zack and Ian, who both play baseball.
Zack is a pitcher and Ian is a 15-year-old second baseman.
When asked if Ian has the same power as him, Melendez said, “It’s early. We will see.”
Melendez leads the country with his 32 home runs this season and became the fourth longhorn to win the Howser Trophy.
Stack Wins: Texas A&M’s sudden resurgence to make it to the CWS after missing the entire NCAA tournament last year began after the Aggies started hitting in time, an early-season problem.
First-year head coach Jim Schlossnagle told his team in late March, “Scoring runs is like eating Pringles. You can’t eat just one.”
The Aggies, with starting pitcher Micah Dallas at the helm, picked up the issue and began bringing cans of potato chips into the stadium and soon it became a rallying cry and they had won 16 of their last 19 games en route to Friday’s CWS- Kick off with Oklahoma.
Seeing the benefits of the promotion, Kellogg’s, which owns the Pringles brand, sent A&M a giant box of stackable chips, shirts and hats. Of course, you’re not allowed to bring food into Blue Bell Park in College Station, so the fans ate the chips outside of the stadium.
Statistics of the day: 3. Melendez said he’s only done the conspicuous bat flip three times that he can remember after home runs. They met South Carolina, Rice and, in one shot that might have traveled 500 feet, East Carolina.
“I got caught up at the moment, but usually it’s like you were there,” the Longhorns senior said. “I don’t want to draw attention to myself. And I don’t want to be hated.”
Streak stopper: Had a nice chat with Bill Cousins, Rice’s former longtime sports information director who serves as the annual CWS press conference host.
We talked about the documentary about legendary strikeout pitcher Nolan Ryan, which features a healthy dose of the Ryan-Robin Ventura beatdown.
I told him I was there when Stanford stopped the 58-game hit streak of one of the best hitters in college baseball history in a CWS game and asked Cousins if he knew who started the streak in 1987.
“Yes,” Cousins said. “Lou Spry.”
The late Spry served as the official scorer for CWS games for decades and was on hand for Ventura’s final at-bat of the game when he hit the Cardinal second baseman with a sharp grounder, but the play was ruled a miss, not a base punch. Incidentally, the pitcher was Jack McDowell, who would go on to become a teammate of Ventura’s with the Chicago White Sox after both were first-round picks on the team.
Ventura has always said McDowell was “a nice friend” who never addressed the series.