Every June, the city of Omaha, Nebraska opens its doors to the baseball world. Fans from all over the country travel to the College World Series at TD Ameritrade Park to witness a tournament that has taken place in Omaha since 1950, and for about ten days, Omaha transforms to a city unlike any other. Baseball fans crowd the streets, restaurants and bars are packed throughout the day, and a special buzz fills the sweltering summer air.
After a long season, the postseason begins with a field of 64 teams that are made out of 16 Regional locations with four teams playing at each host university. From here, 16 teams advance to eight Super Regionals. Finally, eight teams qualify for the College World Series in Omaha, where they take part in another double elimination bracket to ultimately decide the National Champion.
Unlike college football, and for the most part college basketball, college baseball is truly unpredictable and is anyone’s game. Sure there are the marquee programs like LSU, Florida and Oregon State that make regular trips to Omaha, but year after year there are Cinderella programs that in any other major sport would never win championships. In the 2016 College World Series, the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers won the title, yet this season didn’t even make the field of 64. When a team like California State Fullerton, a relatively small program from the Big West, beats Stanford to force a match-up with Long Beach State, a fellow Big West school that beat Texas, it isn’t all that surprising. That’s the beauty of college baseball.
(Photo by Phil Ellsworth / ESPN)
I was lucky enough to visit Omaha in 2016 with my family and attend the Arizona vs University of California Santa Barbara game. We stayed right across the street from the stadium, so we got the full Omaha experience. There were dozens of pop-up stores and tents selling team merchandise all around, almost every person we talked to loved baseball, and from early in the morning to late night after the games, fans from each team created an incredible atmosphere.
If you’re someone who loves baseball, a trip to Omaha for the College World Series is an absolute must. It often feels as though baseball is covered up by basketball and football coverage, but in Omaha, it’s all baseball, all the time.