7 a.m. -- That's a wrap

LSU and Mississippi State get it started at 7 o'clock tonight.

It's one more piece of the beginning of the end.

In 12 hours, the last scheduled weekend series at 70-year-old Alex Box Stadium begins.

The Alex Box Tribute four-page wrap-around of today's Sports section of The Advocate features Joe Macaluso's story about what The Box means to former players. The story begins with Pat Moock taking some of the dirt off the mound Thursday as a souvenir.

We hope the wrap is a souvenir you'll treasure when you can no longer park near Nicholson and Skip Bertman and have another afternoon or night at The Box. After the new stadium opens in 2009, the 70-year-old version of Alex Box Stadium will disappear in favor of what is expected to be one of the country's most breathtaking college ballparks.

The wrap was a labor of love for everyone who had a hand in it, but it was especially appropriate for Joe Mac to write the anchor story. He covered LSU baseball before it shifted gears and became a national powerhouse, and he saw the move coming. As he came to know Skip Bertman and saw the fire in Bertman's belly and the plan he had for LSU baseball, he sensed something that we now know as the glory days of the program.

He came back to the office one day (at a building that, coincidentally, has since been torn down) and predicted the team would create a demand for more high-profile coverage, and he was right. The Tigers began expanding and packing The Box, and they began winning championship.

1991. 1993. 1996. 1997. 2000.

National champions.

LSU baseball became something even Bertman's athletic directors couldn't envision when the Skipper tried to tell them what was possible in Baton Rouge and at LSU. The program became perhaps more scrutinized than any other in college baseball.

The Advocate still sends a full-time sportswriter to each game, including away from home, something I don't think any other paper in the country can say about its college baseball coverage. That's a noteworthy commitment to the sport and its fans in a time when other newspapers and newspaper chains are cutting back on travel for pro teams, consolidating coverage for multiple papers and using the same reporter to write about one team for readers of different papers in different cities.

Paul Mainieri is the latest coach to work under the microscope aimed at LSU baseball, and his second team of Tigers has gone from 11th place in the SEC and fifth in the Western Division to first place in the West  -- a spot that would earn LSU the No. 2 seeding for the conference tournament if the Tigers hold their ground these final two weekends of the regular season.

The more the Tigers win, the more they'll demand the kind of coverage you've come to expect. It's fun to be a part of it and to follow the likes of Joe Mac and others who were part of the days and nights filled with lasting memories at The Box.

A different sort of Alex Box tribute will start on the front page of Sunday's paper, and all weekend Randy Rosetta and I will team up to give you as much LSU baseball coverage as possible. Our photography department has some pretty cool projects in mind, and I'm hopeful things turn out as well as they're anticipating.

I hope you enjoy today's four-page section commemorating the final days of The Box. That's a wrap.