The third baseman has a ball in his hand. John Spikerman didn't know this because he sprinted from first base to third and was tagged after a rocket throw. He doesn't know he is going to be in a video.
At the Men's College World Series, Spikerman is playing in front of 25,000 people. He didn't start until around Easter. When an offense has "chaos" as its adopted theme, a play like this is not a good idea.
Spikerman thought he was out when the ball popped out of Brannigan's glove and bounced off the third base coach. Brannigan tags him on the back after he retrieved the ball.
Reggie Willits was the first base coach for the New York Yankees last year.
Willits told him he loved his aggressiveness.
The Sooners will play Arkansas in the semifinals on Wednesday. The team stopped at the hill where the old championship venue used to be on the way back from practice. The last time Oklahoma won a national title, it was held at the Blatt. The year was 1994.
Willits worked in the batting cages with his son, a senior in high school.
When Willits left the Yankees to become a volunteer assistant coach at his alma mater, he saw an incoming senior play several times.
"It's a bit of a change," he said. It's a good change. My mother is more relaxed now. She's not as stressed as she used to be.
Reggie was living in an apartment outside of New York City while his wife ran the family's cattle ranch in Oklahoma. Reggie married a saint.
He met his wife when he was a child. They went to the same place. Willits was drafted by the Angels in the seventh round in 2003 and he and his wife decided to build a 3,000 square foot house in Fort Cobb. The batting cage was the first thing constructed. While the rest of the house was being built, the New York Times did a story about Willits and his teammates living in an indoor cage during Willits' first year in the league.
Willits was fifth in the American League rookies of the year. Willits was a baseball coach at Binger-Oney in Oklahoma.
He was hired by the Yankees as their baserunner and outfielder.
He loved working for the Yankees, but didn't like the strain it put on his daughter. He wanted to be with his family more. He said he "lived and died" on the messages he received from his sons.
Willits was living in an apartment in New York when some OU alumni inquired about his availability. He wanted to go back to Oklahoma.
Willits said it was home. I was raised there and we wanted to raise our children there.
We love living there and we don't take for granted.
The Oklahoma Sooners had a 14-4 record in 2020 and had big plans for the playoffs.
The team needed to be more athletic in order to put more pressure on the defense. Their freshman class included three players who played a big part in their MCWS run -- Spikerman, Jackson and Wallace Clark.
Spikerman has stolen 12 bases in 32 games and the Sooners got a grand slam from Nicklaus in a win over Texas A&M. Six players on the Sooners have swiped double-digit bases, and they are not just small-ball hitters.
The sophomore is the first OU player to hit 20 home runs and steal 30 bases.
Johnson thinks it puts pressure on the pitcher. Pressure on the pitcher will help him elevate the ball at times, get behind in counts, and other things.
Reggie, one of the best base running coaches in the world, really started the offense. Since I have enough time to teach them how to throw strikes, I just go to practice, go down to the tunnel and then back to the pen. I think it makes it funnier. Our whole coaching staff tries to teach kids how to play baseball, our type of baseball and our identity, being aggressive.
When Willits arrived in Oklahoma, he wanted to gain the players' trust the first thing he did. It's earned through relationships, that's what he said.
Trust is required to steal bases and even lay down bunting.
The freedom to fail is the number one thing Willits thinks you can give a player. To put them in good positions to succeed at what they do, we put on signs and do other things. Freedom to fail is the most important thing we give them. They aren't going to be in trouble if they fail and make an aggressive mistake. The opposite is going to happen.
"If you make a mistake and it's a passive mistake, or a fearful-type mistake of being afraid to fail, then that's the only time you'll hear anything from us."
Johnson likes to refer to his team as the Davids. The "Goliaths" are teams Oklahoma has beaten over the past month. In April, the Sooners were 18-12. They were not expected to do much in the playoffs, but went on the road and beat Florida in the regionals.
The trust has been visible in the past three weeks. The chaos has also had it's share.
It gave us a lot of comfort to know that we were doing the right thing when we had success.
The team is on a mission. We're trying to make a statement by saying it a thousand times before. We tried it in the regional and the supers, and we would like to do it here in Omaha.
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