8:45 a.m. -- Underdogs? The label no longer fits

Maybe it's time we stop acting as if Fresno State's not an outstanding college baseball team.

(With emphasis on the last word of that sentence)

(But plenty of oomph on "outstanding" as well)

The Bulldogs, yes, are the lowest-seeded team in a Division I sport to play for a national championship. They were the lowest-seeded team to reach the College World Series, the lowest-seeded team to reach the final four of any Division I sport.

And they're one victory away from a national championship. Does anyone need more evidence parity is increasing in college baseball?

What Fresno State is doing is forcing us to redefine our terms.

Rankings and seedings are subjective. Just because a committee decides a team hasn't earned a higher seeding, it doesn't mean that the team -- at the moment of the selection committee's decision -- hasn't evolved into a championship-caliber team without it being obvious to us.

We love our Rating Percentage Index and our BCS formula and our Strength of Schedule (pet peeve: why not call it schedule strength and save a word?), but it's all just our arrogant attempts to suggest we know who's best, then who's second-best, then who's third-best, etc. My friend Sonny wonders why people think a single game can decide who the best team in the country is. To him, a game decides (among many other things) what team will win that game. Period.

Now that Fresno State won its conference tournament, staved off elimination in the regional, super regional and College World Series, we might want to stop calling the Bulldogs underdogs. They belong. Life doesn't always fit the convenient labels (in fact, it rarely does), and Fresno State is the latest reminder.

Many of you know my thoughts on football polls. Many of my colleagues have the, yes, arrogance to think that because they've declared, say, Michigan the No. 5-ranked team in the country, that it logically follows that Michigan is the fifth-best team in the country. Not necessarily so.

And when a No. 5 team defeats a No. 2 team, headline and story writers everywhere call it an upset. Why? Maybe the rankings were wrong to begin with.

Ah, to get a writer or columnist who votes in the polls to agree with that -- that would be an upset, sports fans.

Seedings are as subjective as rankings, especially in baseball. Whenever you start seeding baseball, you start acting in many ways as if it's essentially the same as basketball and tennis, and it's not. Whenever you start talking about upsets in baseball, you start acting as if it's the same as football, and it's not.

Baseball fortune is not an invention of coaches trying to keep their jobs. Watch a guy win a game on a check-swing single, then watch a guy end a game with a leaping catch of a smash just over the wall, then get back to me about their not being baseball fortune. The ball hitting second base and jutting away? And I'm not even awake yet. Give me time to drink some coffee and I'll have some better examples for you (but I know you know what I mean).

I don't use the word "upset" for a college baseball game. It's played with aluminum bats, and it's a game in which an ace pitcher becomes the equalizer. It's also a game in which the team that fits our definition of "favorite" can truly lose an any given day. Did you ever see the last-place team in Major League Baseball beat the first-place team? That kind of thing happens a lot. Texas Southern beating Rice in the 2003 regional in Houston? Not an upset. Rice failing to win that regional? Yes, an upset, because it covers multiple games over multiple days.

Major League Baseball has a 162-game schedule, plenty of time to decide over the long haul who's best. The season is that long because it gives us enough time to let baseball fortune do its thing and still let the cream rise to the top. Every time MLB waters down the postseason by adding a round, it dilutes the meaning of that 162-game season, but that's another story.

College baseball has a 56-game schedule. Good, but not as good as 162. Teams come together on their on schedules, on the schedules of the baseball gods, and not necessarily by calendars.

People use the words "year" and "season" interchangeably, but they often are not synonyms. A player can hit .400 from June to June, but he's not going to get credit for hitting .400 in a season. A team can have the best record in baseball from July to July and miss the postseason.

A college baseball team can find the chemistry and intangibles to make a late run, and there's nothing anybody can do to stop such destiny. A team's season can really get going late in the season. Call Fresno State an underdog all you want, but it's time to call the Bulldogs deserving.

Especially the way they win with their backs to the wall.

And here's what makes tonight's championship game even more exciting: Georgia, you should note, is 5-0 in elimination games this season. Fresno State does not have that market cornered.

The championship is no longer a one-game deal. An equalizer can't win one game and win a national championship. It's who wins two out of three, and now this best-two-out-of-three series is down to one game.

I know you'll be watching, and you'll probably agree it's time to stop calling Fresno State an underdog.

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Air time is 6 p.m. CDT on ESPN.

Got a comment or question for Carl? E-mail him at cdubois@theadvocate.com.