The 1950 Texas baseball team.
Omaha and the College World Series will honor Texas and 1950 runnerup Washington State right before the 2010 Championship Series begins Monday night.
The CWS is ending a 60-year run in Rosenblatt Stadium and will move to a new stadium in downtown Omaha next year.
Rosenblatt Stadium will see a first-time National Champion crowned in its last year to host the College World Series.
1950 saw a lot of firsts for Texas and the College World Series.
* Texas became the first team to win back-to-back National Championships.
* 1950 was the first CWS held in Omaha
* It was the first year that the tournament expanded to 8 teams.
* Texas pitcher Jim Ehrler threw the first no-hitter in CWS history.
Texas won the 1949 collegiate baseball title in Wichita, KS, and returned most of that team in 1950. Tom Hamilton and Kal Segrist were the hitting stars for the squad, but even back then Texas won championships with pitching.
Coach Bibb Falk went three deep at starting pitcher. All-American Murray Wall was 28-7 lifetime at Texas and would spend four years in the majors after college. Lefty Charlie Gorin was 6-0 in 1950 and he too would spend time in the majors with the Milwuakee Braves.
Wall lost 4-2 against Rutgers in the first College World Series game ever played in Rosenblatt. Gorin got Texas on the winning track with a 3-1 win over Colorado State in the second round.
Then Jim Ehrler took the mound against Tufts in the third game for Texas.
In 1949, Jim Ehrler was the winning pitcher in the National Championship game against Wake Forest.
Ehrler struck out 14 Tufts batters en route to the no-hitter as Texas cruised to a 7-0 win. Texas faced Washington State next and Wall shut down the Cougars while the Longhorn bats battered the Cougars 12-1.
Kal Segrist is greeted by his Longhorn teammates at home plate after hitting a 3-run homer against Washington State.
Despite the win over Washington State, it was the Cougars who got the bye to the championship game while Texas got a rematch with Rutgers. The Horns jumped out to a 10-0 lead and cruised to a 15-9 win. Gorin was the winning pitcher against Rutgers (he was 3-0 lifetime in the College World Series), which left Ehrler rested and ready for the championship game.
The junior was almost as sharp as he had been against Tufts, striking out 8 Rutgers batters in seven innings as Texas defeated the Scarlet Knights 3-0. Falk decided to pinch run for Ehrler in the 7th inning, so his 1950 College World Series line was 2-0, 16 innings pitched, no runs allowed and 22 strikeouts.
Somebody by the name of Ray VanCleef from Rutgers was named the MVP of the tournament.
Like Gorin and Wall, Ehrler was drafted into the pros by the Boston Red Sox. He reached the Triple A level before being drafted into the Korean War. After getting out of the service, Ehrler returned to Boston, but suffered a career ending shoulder injury soon after. He passed away earlier this year in San Antonio.
Gorin and Segrist will be among the players who will return to Omaha this weekend. Monday night at 7:15 they will be part of a ceremony delivering this year's National Championship trophy to home plate as some of the champion Longhorn players who helped usher in the Rosenblatt Stadium Era will be there to wrap it up.