Stanford's six seniors wanted one more trip to Omaha. Three years in a row, they’d made the end-of-season trek to Rosenblatt Stadium, where billboards assure fans and players alike that the College World Series is “Where Dreams Come True.”
They got what they wanted. Although the team lost in the College World Series semifinals, 6-5, to eventual champion Texas, Scott Dragicevich, Chris O’Riordan, Dan Rich, Andy Topham, Arik VanZandt and J.D. Willcox became the first group of Stanford players to make it to the series four times in a row. “They were instrumental in us getting to Omaha,” coach Mark Marquess said after the game. “Going to the College World Series for four straight years is quite an accomplishment.”
In the 1999 CWS semifinals, the then-freshmen lost to Florida State in 13 nail-biting innings. They reached the finals the next two years, losing by one ninth-inning run to Louisiana State in 2000 and crumbling against an experienced squad from Miami last year. This year, Stanford fielded a formidable defense, posting a 3.21 team postseason ERA and a .973 fielding percentage. In its first game in Omaha on June 15, the Cardinal beat Notre Dame, 4-3, with Jeremy Guthrie pitching a complete game and his teammates playing error-free behind him. But two days later, Texas held off a late Stanford rally to win, 8-7. The rematch results were much the same: in the elimination round on June 18, Rich pitched three scoreless innings to pick up his fourth postseason save and defeat Notre Dame, 5-3; two days later, Guthrie, ’04, suffered only his second loss of the season when Texas’s Dustin Majewski hit one over the wall in the seventh to break a 5-5 tie.
Throughout the final game, individual players were still setting records for the Cardinal (47-18, 16-8 Pac-10). Slammin’ Sammy Fuld set a new school single-season hit record when he tripled against the Longhorns for his 109th hit of the year, earning a .375 season batting average and a lifetime mark of .367. Carlos Quentin tied a school record in the seventh inning when he was hit by a pitch for the 19th time this season. In late June, Fuld and Quentin, both ’04, were named to the USA National Team for the second consecutive summer. A month later, catcher Ryan Garko, ’03, joined them as they traveled to the Netherlands and Italy. And Guthrie, the Pac-10 Pitcher of the Year, was a finalist for the Golden Spikes Award, given to the nation’s best amateur player.
Over the summer, six players signed professional baseball contracts: O’Riordan (Texas Rangers), Topham (Houston Astros), Dragicevich (Toronto Blue Jays), Rich (Cleveland Indians), Jason Cooper, ’03 (Indians), and Darin Naatjes, ’03 (Philadelphia Phillies). Two others, Guthrie (Indians) and Tim Cunningham, ’03 (Atlanta Braves), were drafted but remained unsigned at press time, leaving open the possibility that they will return to Stanford.
The 5-foot-9, 180-pound O’Riordan, a walk-on who played in only two games as a freshman, finished his collegiate career as one of the top hitters in school history. He ranks seventh in batting average (.352), ninth in doubles (49) and 10th in hits (262). “For a guy my size, they are going to look twice at you, but what’s really going to help me is that I’ve blossomed as a hitter at Stanford,” O’Riordan told an online audience in the spring. “I’m going to have to hit to play professional baseball, and that’s what I like doing the most, so I’m looking forward to the challenge.”
Marquess, ’69, who played four seasons of minor-league ball with the Chicago White Sox organization and who coached his 1,600th game at Stanford this season, described the six graduating seniors as “a special group” at a press conference in Omaha. “The thing that can identify this year’s team is consistency,” he added. “We never got off on a big run, we never got to a point where we got really hot or cold, we were just consistent week-in and week-out.”
And year-in and year-out.
