Before the national championships, the Intimidator, and LSU baseball’s transformation into a national power, there was May 28, 1989.

That was when Ben McDonald took center stage, less than two years after June 5, 1987.

LSU entered the final day of the NCAA Regional in College Station needing to defeat 58-5, top-ranked Texas A&M twice on its home field. Skip Bertman’s Tigers won the first game 13-5 behind seven strong innings from McDonald, whom Bertman then moved to left field. Hours later, McDonald returned to the mound to record the final out of LSU’s 5-4 victory in the 11-inning clincher.

It must have felt hauntingly similar, and redemptive, given what had happened to him in the bottom of the tenth inning two years earlier.

It was one of those glorious moments in childhood when I wouldn’t even find out until Monday afternoon, after The Daily Iberian thumped against our front door.

The triumph sent LSU to its third College World Series and, two years before the program’s first national championship, helped establish Bertman’s belief that the Tigers belonged among college baseball’s elite.

Today’s Quote of the Day at The Hayride reads:

“You had to be there before you could win it, and you have to believe you belong.”

— Skip Bertman, as recalled by Ben McDonald

I might not have known Bertman said those words while I was growing up, but I certainly came to live by and believe in their meaning, as I have worked to illustrate through the Andre Blue series you have been seeing here on the site.

In the featured video below, credit to WAFB, Bertman, McDonald, and other Tigers from that season remember the long, grueling Sunday that, as the future proved, carried LSU over the proverbial hump it needed to clear before 1991 could happen.

Here is the video. Sorry, but the capacity was too high to embed here directly:

Thank you for reading The Hayride!