Hotard: 2009 Tigers may be best ever at LSU

• By SCOTT HOTARD
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Jun 25, 2009

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As a sports family, we’re nostalgic. We like to remember. We like to tell stories of what used to be.

When we think LSU baseball, we recall Warren Morris floating around the bases. He did float, right?

We recall Skip Bertman as a man immune to poor decisions. He never made one, did he?

That’s how we tell the stories. That’s how we remember.

So now we take this LSU baseball team — the latest of the program’s six College World Series champs, the freshest on our minds — and compare it with the ones we saw before.

Could Jared Mitchell swipe a base against Gary Hymel? Could Anthony Ranaudo blow a fastball by Brandon Larson?

No, you say?

Truth is, the young Little Leaguer who watched LSU this year may have witnessed something as special as his father, his Uncle Larry or anyone else who follows the Tigers ever did.

He may have witnessed the best season yet.

Let’s first establish that Bertman’s five championship teams helped mold Paul Mainieri’s first. You don’t become the kind of juggernaut LSU fielded this season without top-tier talent and fan support. You don’t get top-tier talent and fan support without tradition and resources. All that began with Bertman and his dynasty. LSU’s new $35 million ballpark is the house they built.

But if you could match the LSU champs in a throwback, six-team regional, this year’s squad might be the No. 1 seed.

Inherently, the latest champions had a more difficult road than the first five.

Only the 2000 squad won a super regional before winning the national championship. Prior to that, the NCAA tournament consisted of 48 teams — it’s now 64 — with regional winners advancing straight to the CWS.