In This Edition:

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The LSU Baseball Tigers have peaked at the right time and have earned a slot to play the Texas Longhorns for the 2009 College World Series Championship!  Tiger fans are converging on Nebraska to sing “Back Home in Omaha” again at Barrett’s Barleycorn and other LSU-friendly hangouts.  After feasting on pork, LSU fans are devouring Omaha steaks at a furious pace.

 

So it will be a best of three series for all the marbles, with ESPN games at 7 pm on Monday, Tuesday and (if necessary) Wednesday.

This is for our SIXTH National Championship, so if you can make it to Buffalo Wild Wings in Alpharetta, please drop in and watch the game with fellow fans.  BWW will put the game on two of the big HD screen with overhead audio. If we get a crowd we’ll even bust out the PA and play some Tiger tunes to fire up the fans. And as we have previously told you, LSU Atlanta will earn a donation of 10% of your total food and beverage purchase.  

 

NOTE: We will announce our fall football view in location slate soon and next year we should have more official chapter viewing locations for basketball and baseball. We also need to remind you that Rio Grande Cantina no longer welcomes LSU fans for game watches.  

 

 

Here are links to some good reading about the Tigers and the “Eauxmaha” experience:

 

B.R. Advocate: Not time for Tigers, Mainieri to celebrate yet

 

Lafayette Advertiser: College World Series: Arkansas found itself in a batting cage once again

 

Shreveport Times: LSU notes: Tigers have shown penchant for power

 

Times-Picayune: LSU is 'peaking at the right time' in College World Series

 

Omaha World-Herald: Mainieri helps Tigers regain bite

 

LSUsports.net - Nick Pontiff Blog: Pontifficating: Omaha from an LSU

 

Finally, we wanted to feature this column by Lake Charles LSU beat writer Scooter Hobbs by reprinting it here:

 

by Scooter Hobbs, Lake Charles American Press

6/20/2009

 

OMAHA, Neb. — Skip Bertman and his wife Sandy slipped out of Rosenblatt Stadium during the seventh-inning stretch Friday, just after LSU took an 11-0 lead over Arkansas. On the elevator down from the press box, Bertman had apparently seen enough. He leaned forward for emphasis.

 

“The moooooons,” he said in that dramatic style of his, “The moons, they are aligning.”

 

Bertman, of course, knows a little something about College World Series astronomy. While winning five national championships in a nine-year span, Bertman was often accused of controlling the CWS like a diabolical puppeteer with a helpless marionette on a string.

Anything LSU ever needed to grease the path to those championships, Bertman seemed to be able to dial up on a whim.

 

Maybe Paul Mainieri is getting the hang of it. Certainly this LSU team, which went on to nonchalantly hammer the Razorbacks 14-5 to advance the championship round on Monday, is

looking more and more like those Bertman Tigers of lore. Those championship teams were known for high-drama, daring-do and two of the three walk-off victories in CWS title game history. But they generally made themselves at home at Rosenblatt on the way to the big game, barging and banging and bullying their way through the bracket with chutzpah and scant regard for the unfortunates that got in their way. Kind of like this year.

 

“I don’t think we’ve reached a stress point in any game,” said designated hitter Blake Dean, who drove in two runs and hit his second home run in as many games and looked perfectly bored

afterwards. They do seem to be making this Omaha run look entirely too easy.

 

The regionals at home were far more of a test than they’ve found in their home away from home — Rosenblatt Stadium. “I think we’re more confident now than we’ve been at any point in

the year,” Dean said.

 

Arkansas was overmatched from the beginning by right-hander Anthony Ranaudo. Thus LSU’s 16 hits and 14 runs bordered on overkill. The Tigers’ and Razorbacks’ body language beforehand told you it wasn’t going to be a good day for pork.

 

“You look at them physically,” Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn said. “They’ve got some really good baseball players, they’ve got a couple of really good football players. They might have a

basketball player over there, I don’t know.”

 

Well, Ranaudo is 6-foot-7 and they also have the odd novelty of a 6-4 second baseman in DJ LeMahieu. But they do seem to be able to do it all, perhaps even more balanced than Bertman teams that had the pop and the pitching, certainly, but sometimes at the expense of a fine-tuned defense.

 

These Tigers, for all their moon shots and weak-kneed strikeouts, have made one error in their three Omaha appearances and, frankly, I don’t remember it except that it didn’t amount to anything. They’re versatile. Before they started lobbing explosive salvos over the Razorbacks’

heads, they scratched together four runs by hook and crook and two-out grit, just to let Arkansas know they hadn’t forgotten about them. They could probably get a bunt down if the situation ever arises and, for that matter, they’ve suddenly even been on their best behavior on the base paths.

 

So they’re good. That’s part of it.

 

Certainly not all of it.

 

Cal State Fullerton was good, probably the hottest team coming into Omaha. Also the first to be deported.  LSU never even played the Titans.

 

Bertman may again be lurking, Oz-like, behind that curtain. They’ve gotten most of the close calls, all of the important ones, and some of the best things that have happened to them took place while they were relaxing in their hotel rooms. Bertman would recognize it. By the time his roll was over, people were starting to think maybe it wasn’t baseball luck.

 

Arkansas — or whoever LSU was going to play — already had to play the extra game. LSU earned that by starting out 2-0. But of course Arkansas spent that extra game mired down in a

must-win, 12-inning white-knuckler that sucked up all its best pitching and the left the Razorbacks with Mssrs. Hope and Prayer to try to hold LSU down.

 

LSU went to the zoo that day.

 

Hello, batting practice. Hello, championship series.

 

It wasn’t quite perfect, else Arizona State would have forced Texas into an extra game before the Longhorns meet LSU on Monday. Otherwise, this whole thing with LSU really and truly does look vaguely familiar.

 

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What could be more natural than a Boudreaux joke contest at a place named Boudreaux’s? Mark your calendar for Saturday, July 18th at 1 pm for the first-ever Boudreaux Joke Lunch & Laugh to be held at Boudreaux’s Cajun Market and Café in downtown Duluth. 

 

There will be great food and great laughs, and if you can tell a good joke you might just walk off with a great prize. We’ll even have a selection of Boudreaux Jokes printed out for you to choose from if you can’t remember a good one. Watch for complete details coming soon!   

 

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The Tiger Tour not only pumped up the LSU faithful who were able to attend it last week, it also gave a shot in the arm to our LSU license plate drive in Georgia. Several who attended filled out the form and submitted their prepayment, and many others took applications with them, which are trickling in. We continue to get a few more every week, so we know the word is getting around. KEEP IT UP!!

 

As of this week, we have received pre-payment registrations for 423 LSU specialty Georgia license plates.   Keep this program in the back of your mind as you talk with your contacts and see LSU fans out and about in your daily doings. And please be sure to reach out to your LSU friends that live outside of the metro area in Georgia.

If you have been waiting to sign up – you need to DO IT NOW! Georgia requires pre payment of the $25 fee and a completed registration form. LSUAA is depositing all monies in a separate escrow account until we reach our 1,000 minimum. DON’T WAIT!

 

Click here for information on how to order your plates today.

 

Click here to print out the registration form  

 

Feel free to share it with your friends – if they have the form in their hands the chance is much higher that they will remember and fill it out.  Also, you can own one of the first 100 sequenced plate numbers – the fee for those is $50 each.  If you would like to upgrade your original order, or have any other questions about the license plate program, please email Sarah Clayton at sleeclay@comcast.net.

 

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Until next time ... GEAUX TIGAHS!

 

LSU Atlanta

 

Information/ Contact: Go to http://www.lsuatlanta.com/contact.