Dubois: After early jam, all went well

• By CARL DUBOIS
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Apr 30, 2008 - UPDATED: 6:20 a.m.

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The only time LSU had to call the cops Tuesday night at Alex Box Stadium was to request assistance in getting the umpires to the ballpark.

The umps realized they were in a jam more than an hour before game time. Stuck in the convergence of a wreck, a shutdown of I-10 and a snarl of traffic clogging back roads, they called from near St. Gabriel and told of their plight.

LSU Police got them to the Box in time for the first game in nearly six years between the UL-Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns and the LSU Tigers.

The rest of the night, officials said, stadium marshals and security had little to do outside the norm of a typical game night.

“It went great,” said Ted Stickles, LSU game management director emeritus.

He and his crew reported no problems off the field. On the field there was nothing but baseball.

LSU pitcher Austin Ross hit two UL-Lafayette batters with pitches, and the Cajuns’ Buddy Glass hit one LSU batter, but nobody seemed to interpret those as anything other than three pitches that got away.

Everything else was pretty good baseball for a crowd of 4,050, the third-largest of the season at the Box. LSU won 5-3.

There was nothing resembling the shenanigans from the 2002 regional at the Box, the last time the teams had met, and the reason for the long break.

Tony Robichaux, UL-Lafayette’s coach then and now, smiled after the game and spoke well of second-year LSU coach Paul Mainieri.

“Paul’s a class guy, and this is a class program,” Robichaux said. “We came here to play baseball, and we’re going to play them next year twice.”

He said he’d like for LSU to play again some day in Lafayette.

“We want to earn our stripes first and let the past be the past,” Robichaux said, “and sooner or later they can come and play us.”