Oral History of Alabama's 1997 Baseball Season (aka Alabama's 21-0 moment)

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Alabama hosted LSU in the season’s final regular season series. LSU was the defending national champion, and most considered it to be a meeting of the two best teams in college baseball. The Crimson Tide needed to sweep the Tigers to win the conference championship.

Vaz threw a complete game to win on Friday, just his second career start. Then the Crimson Tide erupted in a 28-2 win on Saturday to clinch the series. But LSU recovered from losing the first two games and won the third game to clinch the conference championship.

Butler: “We knew in the fall of 1996 that we would play LSU to win the SEC and we would probably play LSU in Omaha. We knew that in the fall of 1996. The scouts were coming through and saying that the best two teams were LSU and Alabama.”

Vaz: “They had Brandon Larson who hit 40 home runs that year and was a Golden Spikes finalist along with myself that year. Really mirror images of each other.”

Wells: “I know some of the kids on (LSU) and the coaches. They said (head coach Skip Bertman) got them together and they thought they were getting ready to get chewed out. He brought them into the outfield after the game and he says ‘Hey guys, let’s go back to the motel, get a good night’s sleep, get something to eat. They can’t possibly do that again.’ What a great line. A veteran coach. They came back the next day and basically threw the same guys we shelled the day before and won the Sunday game.”

Phillips: “You can be playing as well as you can be, and you can get beat. Certainly in that last game, that’s what happened. LSU, they beat us in that last game to win the SEC. But it doesn’t diminish anything we accomplished that year up to that point.”

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LSU had beaten Alabama on the final day of the regular season for the conference championship, but the postseason was still ahead. Alabama went to the SEC tournament in Columbus, Georgia looking to prove they were the nation’s best team. Alabama lost a game to LSU, but came back to face the Tigers in the championship game.

Head coach Jim Wells: “At that point, you want to win the SEC tournament and it’s always special to beat LSU. You’re kind of now starting to think on a larger scale, going ‘If we’re the two best teams, we’ve beaten LSU three out of four here. We have a chance to win this thing.’ You don’t dwell on that. It was nice to win that, but when you have a team like that, you realize you have a chance to maybe win the whole thing.”

Second baseman Joe Caruso: “(The regular season) taught us a lesson going into the SEC tournament that we cannot get into a championship game against LSU and lose again. We beat them pretty handily that year in the SEC tournament for the championship, because we were refusing to lose to them in a championship environment again.”

Pitcher Michael Daniel: “I went out and gave up a home run to the second batter, which was Blair Barbier. It was like ‘Oh, man.’ I ended up giving up three hits but two of them were home runs. Once I got out there and calmed down, pitched my game, it turned out real well. Nobody knew what to expect when I went out there to throw, because it was so up and down for me during the season.”

UA was 3-0 in the tournament and entering the regional championship against Southern Cal. The Trojans were talented and went on to win the 1998 national championship. Alabama needed a walk-off to win in extra innings and reach Omaha, but they took a major loss just before the game. Star outfielder/pitcher Roberto Vaz, one of the nation’s best players, was lost for the season to a freak injury.

Outfielder/pitcher Roberto Vaz: “We’re taking batting practice. USC was coming into the field. They were walking down the right field line, because you came in from right field at that time. With a round of seven, I hit six home runs and one off the fence right next to the entrance. As I was running to first, I’m looking at the ball I hit that’s going up against them. It scattered the team, kind of shocked (USC) a little bit because that ball came out of nowhere. And there was a ball on the chalk about halfway up the line, and I stepped on it and cracked a bone in my foot. It wasn’t a bad injury, but it was just bad enough where I couldn’t play. The break was completely through the fifth metatarsal, which is like your pinky bone. They call it a Jones fracture, which is usually a basketball injury from cutting.”

Assistant coach Mitch Gaspard: “I can remember it like it was yesterday, because I’m throwing BP. He comes down the line after his last swing, and he’s running to first base like we do. Steps on a ball and kind of rolls his ankle. He hobbles to the dugout and doesn’t say much. And so you’re thinking he rolled his ankle … They send him up to the hospital before the game started to get X-rays. We’re thinking he’s going to come back with a sprained ankle and he comes back with a cast, on crutches. We’re going ‘Oh my god, we just lost Vaz.’”

Assistant coach Todd Butler: “To this day, when I throw batting practice or I’m watching BP, I’m always making sure the balls are out of the way when they run around the bases or down the line.”

Vaz: “I did try to see what my options were about playing, but our team doctor at the time advised against it. He felt like I had a good shot to get drafted and if I were to play with a broken bone in my foot, then I could possibly tear all the tendons and rip some cartilage off the bone. He was like ‘Even though you’re probably going to have surgery regardless, you probably don’t want to have that kind of extensive surgery on an extremity like your foot.’ That was a tough decision for me. I still think about it to this day.”

Four teams from the SEC West reached the College World Series that season. Alabama, LSU, Mississippi State and Auburn all reached Omaha.

Wells: “When you face a good team for the second time and it’s the same guy, they made some adjustments. They knew his best pitch was a fastball away, so they got on top of the plate, looked for it and jumped on us early.”

Right fielder Dustan Mohr: “Michael Daniel starting that game, that’s a tough spot for him. He didn’t have a lot of innings going in. To start in the national championship game against LSU, that was a tough situation for him to be in. He did as good as you can expect. They were so good offensively that you just couldn’t make mistakes or they were going to make you pay for them. That’s what transpired there at the end.”

LSU had beaten Alabama again to win the national championship. The two teams split their six games that year 3-3 and entered the final day of the season with the same record.

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