Tigers hook the 'Horns

The Alamo, the College World Series . . . when you're from Coahuila y Tejas, one ass-kicking is as good as another.

This time, the Louisiana State Tigers finished what Santa Anna started, administering an 11-4 beatdown to take the national championship of college baseball. As for Augie Garrido's Texas Longhorns . . . well, they came to Omaha, and all they got was another lousy doorstop.

But at least they showed up for the runner-up trophy presentation this time. That's something, I guess.

YOU MAY THINK this LSU alum sounds like a sore winner. Usually I'm not. But then again, we usually don't get an opportunity to pound Tejas into the dirt when a national title is on the line.

And as a native Louisianian, an LSU grad, an Omahan and a Nebraska fan -- not to mention having had seats in the middle of a bunch of Texas fans for Tuesday night's 5-1 Tiger loss in Game 2 of the final series -- Wednesday night's victory was sweet indeed.

Let me put it this way: The College World Series is personal to me, and not just because my alma mater has won the thing six times, with me there to see every championship. No, I fell in love with the CWS in 1983, when Roger Clemens, Calvin Schiraldi and Texas held off Alabama to win it all.

I had box seats for the championship, having driven in from North Platte, Neb., for the big game. A certain young female colleague at the North Platte Telegraph procured those tickets for a buddy and me -- her father, as it happens, had been the Series' PR man since it moved to the Big O in 1950.

When you come across a pretty young thing with connections like that, there's only one thing to do. We were married Aug. 20, 1983, and she since has become a rabid LSU fan.

My Nebraska fandom already was well established when we tied the knot -- we were engaged at Husker football picture day, right outside Memorial Stadium.

THIS IS ALL TO SAY that I'm not just an LSU baseball fan who can't stand Tejas. I'm an LSU baseball fan who can't stand Tejas who also happened to marry into the CWS. And when you have a team who can't bother -- as happened in 2004 -- to show up to get its second-place trophy, you have a team (and a coach) who just disrespected family.

And when you have too-obnoxious, too-indulgent, too-tanned, too-bejeweled, too-enhanced, too too Tejas chiquitas who get too offended -- she and her buddies -- that not everybody in Rosenblatt Stadium is pulling for the Longhorns and that some who aren't are too close to her . . . well, podna, Texas has messed with what the College World Series (and my town) is all about.

Don't mess with Omaha.

Or with dem Tigahs.