LSU Baseball: Farewell to Tigers' Alex Box Stadium

It often smells of manure because of nearby LSU livestock. It is almost always dirty and dusty. There are bird nests in the rafters. There are cats, possum and snakes below,.

With temperatures approaching the 90s, it's a sweaty hot box with antique fans on the ceiling that rearrange the dirt more than cool anything.

But 70-year-old Alex Box Stadium, next to the train tracks just off Louisiana Highway 30, is a beautiful, "brown-eyed handsome man" to those who have called it home. It is their wondrous, green, plush "Church of Baseball."

This may be the last time the LSU versions of Annie Savoy can sit in these pews.

Alex Box, named in 1943 after a dashing, fallen member of the Greatest Generation from LSU, "is roundin' third and headed for home" as John Fogerty's classic "Center Field" will proclaim loud and clear over the Bose speakers today.

It's the last time the original Box will hear that song, unless LSU gets to host an NCAA regional in three weeks.

LSU debuted with a loss at Alex Box Stadium on March 24, 1938, to Minnesota 6-5. At the time, the concrete and steel structure of the Works Progress Administration was only a grandstand seating 2,500. Now it seats over 7,000.

Buddy LeBlanc, 78, was at the first game, and he'll be at the last one. He throws out the first pitch today.

"You wouldn't have recognized it back then," he said. "I hate to see it go. It's been a great stadium."

LSU was 1,200-508-7 all-time in the Box for a .699 winning percentage entering its game against State Saturday afternoon. The Tigers will move into a clean, modern and larger Alex Box just a few blocks down Louisiana Route 30 next season that will seat 8,786 much more comfortably with state of the art amenities.

They're taking the name and the train, which will continue to pass right near the stadium.

"It's sad, but I really think it's time," said Malcolm Moreau, who has missed less than a dozen games since the early 1980s and is usually accompanied by his wife Rosemarie and daughter Tammy Anne. "You've got to keep up with the Joneses. We'll be at the new stadium, too."

Since Skip Bertman became coach before the 1984 season, the Box has sort of resembled a train as Bertman attached new construction to the original shell gradually over the years. They have added a bleacher here, a bleacher there, a new coaches' office, a new scoreboard, a new locker room and players' lounge and picnic areas.

"I screwed in the soap dishes in the shower," Bertman said. "I painted everything and mowed the grass, and of course I fixed the field and changed it from river silt to Georgia red clay."

Bertman also built wins and College World Series appearances,  a total of 11 between 1986 and 2000. He also registered five national championships between 1991 and 2000.

It will be Bertman, who retired as baseball coach in 2001 and became athletic director, taking off the final numeral sign in left field today as the number of remaining games will go from 1 to 0, unless LSU receives a home regional.

"Maybe I'll be teary, I don't know. There are so many great memories. I loved every minute of it," Bertman said.

"Before Skip, we could sit wherever we wanted," said Moreau, who sits in the gold seats halfway up from home plate. "We used to watch the birds make their nests. It became a different world. I really liked being here in the mid-1990s when we were hitting all the home runs. It was so exciting. I just like the whole atmosphere of this ballpark."

One section to Moreau's right sits veteran fan Marvin "The Big Ragoo" Dugas.

"I just like old baseball parks," Dugas said during LSU's 15-6 win over Mississippi State Friday night. "This is an old-style ballpark that was updated piece by piece over the years. It's great.

"It gets awful hot up here and it's not a modern stadium, but you're practically on the field. You can get really involved in the game. You can yell at the umpires, and they can hear you.

"It was like a football game in here when we beat USC in the regional in 1990 to go to the World Series. Everyone stood up the whole game from the first pitch to the last pitch. That's the loudest it's been. That's when Alex Box established itself as the place for an NCAA regional."

Jim Neaton has been a season ticket holder since 1981 and regularly drives over from Orange, Texas.

"It's a historic stadium," he said. "You get a nostalgic feeling in here. That's why I like it."

One of LSU associate athletic director Herb Vincent's assignments when he was a student assistant in the sports information department in the early 1980s was baseball.

"Alex Box has a lot of character," he said. "I think that's why people like it. It has a lot of atmosphere. It's a great place to see a game."

It's even more fun playing the games.

Pitcher Patrick Coogan will never forget running off the mound in the bottom of the ninth against Long Beach State in the 1997 NCAA Regional at the Box. His strikeout with a runner in scoring position and Long Beach as the home team sent the game into extra innings and LSU eventually won 14-7.

"That was the most amped up I've ever been," Coogan said. "I forearm-slapped two guys on the way to the dugout and almost knocked them over. I felt like that was the closest I'd ever get to playing in Tiger Stadium."

Alexandria's Warren Morris is famous for hitting the biggest home run in college baseball history, giving LSU a 9-8 win over Miami in the national championship game in 1996. But it was his pop-out in Alex Box in the NCAA regional opener against Austin Peay that sticks with him as well.

"It was the first game I played after having surgery on a broken bone in my hand," Morris wrote in an e-mail this week. "In my very first at-bat, I popped up for an out. After missing most of the season with my injury, I was so excited just to be back in the lineup.

"Evidently, the Tiger faithful were equally happy to see me back. I never will forget jogging back to the dugout after making an out, looking up and getting a standing ovation from the greatest fans in the world! I still get goose bumps thinking about it!

"I have lots of great memories of my time in a Tiger uniform, but I will always cherish the special welcome back I received that night ... after a pop-up."

Shreveport's Todd Walker hit a grand slam against Texas A&M in the College World Series in 1993 and singled in the winning run against Long Beach State to put the Tigers in the national championship game. He hit a two-run homer in the first inning against Wichita State as the Tigers won the national title with an 8-0 victory.

But a Box memory has stayed with Walker just as fervently.

"It was our victory lap around the stadium after winning the 1994 regional," Walker said this week. "That was our last game for us juniors and getting an opportunity to shake hands with the greatest college baseball fans in the country was very emotional for me. I had plenty of hits I'll remember, but the overall aura of playing in the Box I'll never forget."

So, cue up Frank Sinatra one more time:

And there used to be a ballpark

Where the field was warm and green

And the people played their crazy game

With a joy I'd never seen.

And the air was such a wonder

From the hot dogs and the beer

And the people watched in wonder,

How they'd laugh and how'd they cheer

And there used to be a ballpark ... right here.