A look around the Internet after Michigan fell to Vanderbilt in the College World Series:
They lingered for a while. Maybe 40 minutes on the field where many of them played their last inning of college baseball.
They high-fived and hugged and chatted as Vanderbilt celebrated some 50 feet way, a pile of giddy College World Series champs at TD Ameritrade Park.
Their coach had asked them to stay and watch.
And really, why not?
“There is only one other team in the country that gets to watch that live,” said Michigan coach, Erik Bakich. “That's something that has value for our guys to see that in person.”
Because he expects these Wolverines to be back.
Regularly.
If there was a story line for the Wolverines the past three days as U-M fell to Vanderbilt, 8-2, in the season’s final series — other than Vanderbilt’s filthy pitching — there it was: The run to Omaha should change this program.
“This type of success — even though we are not No. 1 — will move the needle and allow us to be a program that is now ignited to where this becomes the standard and guys believe it and know what it takes to navigate through a postseason,” said Bakich. “Our guys have experience doing that and that’s a huge luxury to have.”
But this isn’t just about how the Wolverines feel about themselves now that they’ve gotten here, a game away from winning it all. It’s about outside perception, too. About how recruits and high school baseball coaches see what Bakich has created.
No longer do players from the midwest need to go south to chase postseason tournament runs and a dream of playing in the major leagues. This U-M team proves that.
By coming within a game of a national title and by having several of its players get snatched up in the MLB draft earlier this month.
For a coach, this is when you know you’ve done things the right way.
And for Michigan baseball coach Eric Bakich, this is probably when he knew it’d be OK, no matter what happened at the end of a remarkable season.
Moments after a disappointing loss Tuesday night at the College World Series in Omaha, after Vanderbilt’s ace had staved off elimination and forced Wednesday’s winner-take-all Game 3 against the Wolverines, Bakich took one look at his players and knew the message didn’t need to change.
“Well, I just read their faces in the dugout,” Bakich told reporters, “and they were smiling.”
And at that point, he knew his postgame speech needed only to remind the Wolverines of something they’d all grown to understand -- and of the belief they’d all learned to share -- over the last six weeks, in particular.
“He said it couldn’t be more fitting for our team that we go into the final day,” catcher Joe Donovan said.
And he was right, once more, which is a reminder itself, I think, of just what a perfect fit Bakich is for the program he led to a place it hasn’t been in decades. A place few would’ve imagined it’d ever reach again, for that matter.
Much like John Beilein was for Michigan’s basketball program over the last decade or so, Bakich has proven to be the right coach at the right time in the absolute right place in Ann Arbor. From the detailed practice plans to the player developmental program to the desire to blend old-school core values -- aggressiveness and toughness -- with new-age thinking. (Bakich's players will talk casually about some of the mental calisthenics they rely on daily -- breathing exercises, self-talk, cue words and so on.)
And regardless of Wednesday’s dramatic deciding game – the last NCAA sporting event of the 2018-19 calendar year -- Michigan baseball’s spring barnstorming tour has done something that can’t be measured in wins or losses. It can only be measured in smiles, whether from exhilaration, exhaustion or whatever.
Kent Schwartz, The Michigan Daily: Don't let the end distract from Michigan's run
In February, no one thought Michigan’s season would end on June 26th. No one thought it would get its first 50-win season since 1987 and beat the No. 1 team in the country twice on the road to go to its first College World Series since 1984.
And most of all, no one thought that the feeling of losing in game three of the College World Series final against the No. 2 team in the country would be disappointing.
But it is.
On Wednesday, the Wolverines watched Vanderbilt storm the field and celebrate its second national title in five years, coming back to win the last two games in a three-game series for the championship. They were as close as it gets.
A team that squeaked into the NCAA tournament as one of the "Last Four In", and that was discounted in Corvallis, Los Angeles and Omaha, shocked college baseball.
Since the walkoff win against Illinois, Michigan went 12-5 against some of the best teams in the country. A hit that lit a flame inside the hearts of the Wolverines propelled them to simply be better than all but one team.
They showed how much they had improved by crushing Texas Tech, a team that dominated them in March. They showed they could bounce back from crushing losses against Creighton and UCLA with win-or-go-home victories.
Junior left-hander Tommy Henry dominated on the mound in his last two starts, throwing a complete game shutout and a game one win, respectively. Senior first baseman Jimmy Kerr turned red hot, launching seven of his 15 home runs in the NCAA tournament while capturing the attention of baseball with the story of his father and grandfather.
Coach Erik Bakich beat possibly the most storied coach of college baseball, Mike Martin, in his last year, when the world was on Martin’s side. In the meantime, Bakich made tough calls that paid off, such as moving Jeff Criswell to the bullpen and dropping closer Willie Weiss.
Over and over, interview after interview in Omaha, Bakich was asked what this meant for Big Ten baseball — for northern baseball.
Chris Balas, The Wolverine: Michigan Baseball: Team 153 Established The Culture Bakich Envisioned
They came expecting to win, not caring that nobody with any knowledge of their sport gave them much of a chance. In fact, Vanderbilt remained a heavy favorite to win the three-game College World Championship series with Michigan even after the Wolverines captured Game One Monday.
The Wolverines’ 7-4 win in the opener wasn’t a mirage, but most knew getting the second win over an elite Commodores team was the hardest part. It proved too tough — Vanderbilt won the last two games by a combined 12-3, including 8-2 in Wednesday’s Game Three, and its pitchers were nearly unhittable — but to head coach Erik Bakich, it was only the first step of what he’s envisioned for his program.
“Omaha isn’t a city to me,” he said of the College World Series hometown. “It’s a way of life.”
It’s also the promised land, and not just for him or any one of his teams. He made a vow to his former coach at East Carolina, Keith LeClair (who died in 2006 after battling ALS), that he would continue his legacy and take a team to the World Series.
"I got into coaching because I made a promise to Coach LeClair that myself and my teammates, we would continue his inspiration and continue his legacy and get to Omaha for him, because he never got to go," Bakich said.
But he never meant only once.
In fact, the bar has now been set for future generations of Wolverines. Getting there was great, Bakich said, but he made it clear that’s what he came to Ann Arbor to do … repeatedly.
“Team 153 has inspired a future generation of Michigan baseball players to realize what the new standard of college baseball (at Michigan) is all about,” he said. “It’s inspired a believability that being a National Champion is a reality. We were one game away from it.
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