O! What mine eyelets hath seen!

Hello. I'm the Mighty Favog's lucky baseball cap.

I have rested atop that boy's sweaty-ass head for the last 20 years, through thick and thin -- and I'm mainly talking about your blogmeister's hair, here.

Can somebody's head be "sweaty-ass"? Just wondering.

Anyway, where was I? Aiiight.

AHEM. For the last 20 years, I have adorned the Mighty Favog's incredibly ugly head, which -- whether it technically can be sweaty-ass or not -- has a tendency to expel copious amounts of smelly saline solution on hot days at the ball park. As you can see, that has taken its toll on me.

It didn't make it any easier that for years at the College World Series, I had to witness things like Ben McDonald getting shelled like Omaha Beach by the Texas Longhorns in 1989. My Tigers had a habit of getting to Omaha, but not being able to get over the hump.

FINALLY, in 1991, the Favog and I sat for a week in general admission, watching LSU tear through the CWS field. We liked those old metal stands just beyond first base at Rosenblatt Stadium, because if you wanted a drink -- or if you just had to go -- you could save a lot of time by climbing down the sides . . . and then climbing back up again.

Try that today, buddy, and they'll have your ass in handcuffs. Wait, that didn't sound exactly right. You know what I mean.

I remember we were sitting in the grandstand for the championship game against Wichita State, and after the final out, with the Tigers victorious, that stupid idiot picked up Mrs. Favog and started spinning us all around like a top. I thought we were going to fall down about 3 million stadium steps.

AND I REMEMBER two years later, when we were back in the first-base cheap seats and the Long Beach State fans thought they were about to send LSU home. Eliminated. "Start the bus! Start the bus!" was what they chanted at us.

Bottom of the ninth. Three runs. Tigers win, then go on to beat Wichita State (again) in the championship game.

In 1996, things got kind of blurry -- not to mention dizzifying and deafening -- when Warren Morris hit that bottom-of-the-ninth, two-out line drive that kept going until it had cleared the right-field fence. I saw the ball go out . . . and then I was flopping all over as that idiot owner of mine kept throwing me and waving me and whacking me on stuff. Then -- yet again -- picking up the wife and spinning.

I thought we were going to die. And you wonder why I look like I do now.

I was there at Rosenblatt when LSU won in '97, too. This one Alabama fan was really unamused by our "Around the bowl and down the hole! Roll, Tide, roll!" cheer. And we were there in 2000, too, when Stanford got a little Tiger payback for Paul Carey's walk-off grand slam in 1987.

And, of course, we were there -- Mr. Cap Abuser and me -- through all the just-miss years and a couple of years of abject CWS humiliation during the Smoke Laval Era. Enough said.

Really, I don't want to talk about it.

SO NOW, after a four-year absence, Paul Mainieri has our Tigers back in Omaha -- the Omaha where we live, and the Omaha where Fathead's wife's dad worked for three decades to make the College World Series a local institution. (OK, so your Idiot Blogger married up . . . and married well. Lots of people can marry a higher class of wife, you know?)

I imagine the boy will be back in the stands come Sunday, cheering on his alma mater. While Mr. Expatriate has famously conflicted feelings about Louisiana and his hometown, Baton Rouge, there is no ambiguity in his rabid support of LSU baseball and football.

Frankly, I don't know if I will make it this year. I am old, and I am tired. I have seen better days, obviously, and my appearance seems to horrify Mrs. Favog. I mean, I'll try, but my stitching ain't what it used to be . . . and Fathead's noggin hasn't gotten any smaller over the decades.

Judging by my aching seams and sweatband, the boy ain't a size 7 3/8 anymore.

So, if I see you, I see you. If I don't . . . well, I'll always have my memories. In the ball yard of my mind, I'll always have Rosenblatt's left-field bleachers -- the old ones -- the Twizzler Man and "Share with your neighbor. And don't be stingy!"

Geaux Tigers.