The College World Series began this past Friday and Saturday. All eight teams played their opening games. Four teams lost their openers and will now play elimination games. It is striking — and special — that USC baseball was able to lose its first game at the 1963 College World Series and still come back to win the national championship:
“One of the hardest things to do in college sports, alongside going 12-0 in a football season and making the Final Four, is winning the College World Series after losing the first game. It’s basic math. In a double-elimination tournament, losing Game 1 requires perfection for the next several games. A team can then lose a second game in the best-of-three championship series (which didn’t exist 60 years ago), but for several games, it can’t slip up once if it falls in the Omaha opener.”
Why is 1963 so special in the history of Los Angeles baseball, you might ask? We answered that question:
“1963 was the crowning year of baseball in the history of Los Angeles. There were several years in which USC baseball and the Dodgers were both great, but only in 1963 did the city’s two best baseball teams win their respective World Series championships.”
The added detail about 1963 which remains remarkable to this day: 1963 remains the only year in which the Dodgers clinched a World Series title at Dodger Stadium. Their other World Series titles — 1959, 1965, 1981, 1988, 2020 — were won away from home.
This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: Losing Game 1 of College World Series was no problem for USC in 1963
Reporting by Matt Zemek / Trojans Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
