Just a really unique experience. Leaving the stadium Sunday night talked to a guy and his son. The kid had on a State hat and come to find out they were Omaha locals. I asked how he got to be a State fan and the son’s name was Ethan and he followed Ethan Small from State a few years ago and was hooked on State baseball ever since.

Here are a couple of articles about a former State player and how the locals adopted him. Just a great experience, and if you’ve never been would highly encourage you to check it out some day.

Nobody appreciated Omaha and the CWS more than State’s Rusty Thoms by Rick Cleveland June 23, 2018

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Rusty Thoms, now a 43-year-old Madison businessman, came here twice in the maroon and white of Mississippi State, and it is safe to say no college baseball player – ever – appreciated the Omaha experience more than Thoms.

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“RUSTY! RUSTY! RUSTY!” the fans, especially in the left field bleachers, chanted, even after the Bulldogs were eliminated. Thoms’ first trip here had been in 1997, the last year of Ron Polk’s first tenure at State. That was a terrific State team, which finished 47-21 and 19-11 in the Southeastern Conference.

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First, more background: The Bulldogs were to play Alabama in the first game of the 1997 Series, but the game before, UCLA-Miami, went into extra innings. The Bulldogs were killing time behind the bleachers in left field. “Fans were wrapped around the stadium, waiting for the first game to end so they could get in,” Thoms says. “We started talking to them and one of them asked me if he could have my batting glove that the Mississippi State emblem on it. We had all new stuff so I gave him and some other people my old ones. Turns out, those people wound up sitting in the left-field bleachers. It kind of snow-balled from there.” Thoms was a fan favorite before his first CWS game ever begun. Then he played well, as State lost that first game to Alabama, then eliminated UCLA in the losers’ bracket before being eliminated by Alabama. By the time State left Omaha, fans in the left field bleachers had made up their own T-shirts that said, simply, “RUSTY.”

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In 1998, State returned under first-year coach Pat McMahon. They were a most unlikely CWS participant, much like the current Bulldogs. They finished 14-15 in the SEC, but then got hot at the right time. The No. 4 seed of six teams in the Texas A & M Regional, State defeated Washington, Rice and host A & M twice to get to Omaha. In Omaha, Rusty’s fans were ready. He was welcomed liked Elvis at the Tropicana. No, really, he was. State played Florida and National Player of the Year Brad Wilkerson in first round. “RUSTY! RUSTY! RUSTY!” they chanted as he took the field for the first game.

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Lynda Thoms, Rusty’s mother, did not have tickets in the left field bleachers, but she went out there to see what all the commotion was about. She took photos of all the fans in “Rusty” T-shirts. She took a photo of the five guys who wore no shirts but who had “R-U-S-T-Y” painted on their their chests. Someone saw the woman in maroon and white taking photos and asked her who she was.

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After the final out, with the fans in left still chanting his name, Thoms emerged from the State dugout and trotted out to left field. First, he took off his sweat bands and threw them into the stands. Then, his batting gloves. Then, he tossed his cap. And then, just as his mama, crying as she watched, yelled, “No, Rusty, not the glove,” he threw his mitt to some lucky fan. It was almost enough to make an otherwise jaded, then-45-year-old sports writer cry. When I asked Rusty about it later, he said, “Well, I’m not gonna need it any more.”

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All these years later, Omaha fans remember. This week, I mentioned Rusty Thoms on Twitter. A fan named Brian responded. He was the one who got Rusty’s cap. “Remember it vividly, Rusty … Thanks for the hat,” he tweeted.

The Rusty Thoms Omaha story, a gift that keeps on giving for Bulldogs

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So this week, this old sports writer used social media to tweet out a link to the story I wrote three years ago about Thoms’ CWS experience. And here’s more proof of how the Internet has made this a so much smaller world. In Omaha, a fan read it. That fan’s name is Judd Merkel. He was 16 years young and sitting in those left field bleachers in 1998. He emailed me. He was the guy who caught Rusty’s cap.

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Rusty called him. They — and their children — met outside the ballpark before the game. Merkel gave Rusty his old maroon cap. The bible verse Thoms had inscribed on the cap was still there. “I’m not gonna lie, I got emotional seeing that,” Thoms said. “They (Merkel and his family) were so nice. To think, they had had my cap and taken care of it for all these years. And to share this with my sons, who had heard the story all these years, but this really made it real for them. The whole thing is just surreal.”

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Rusty Thoms had the cap sitting beside him for much of the game, as the Bulldogs trailed 4-0 and were hitless. Then, it started raining, and he put it on his head. Then came the eighth inning, and you know what happened next. For Rusty Thoms and Mississippi State, this is a story that keeps on giving.