Fresno State is a needed breath of fresh air

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Hard to breathe. Too much smoke. Haze replacing blue sky. Can't see the gas station, much less buy there.

Depressing, no?

I submit a reason to smile, a pick-me-up through tough times. It costs nothing but is a guaranteed mood-changer. It might even inspire.

If only it could put out a few hundred fires.

If channeled properly, however, its energy probably could improve air quality -- think 5 million wind machines -- by nightfall.

I give you Turlock products Tommy Mendonca and Blake Amador and 23 of their best baseball friends at Fresno State University. They're the NCAA champions, and how they did it will serve as a reference point for, let's say, forever.

Hundreds of down-on-their-luck teams of all ages and genders, or perhaps slumping companies, will hear the story from their coaches or bosses: The 2008 Fresno State baseball team had no shot. No chance. Forget it. Not only were the Bulldogs not good enough, they didn't even enter the conversation.

Until they won, that is.

The Bulldogs can't stem gang violence or save homes from foreclosure, but they can escort us from "no way" to "let's do it." They're the lowest-seeded team in any NCAA sport to win a championship. They weren't underdogs. That would understate their underdogness. They just took the conventional wisdom and tossed it over the rainbow in Omaha.

Simply, they embodied the valley itself.

"What we've done was something great for everyone," Mendonca, the Bulldogs' sophomore third baseman, told an adoring capacity crowd at Thursday night's victory reception. "These were 25 of the best guys you'll ever play with."

Mendonca, the Most Valuable Player of the College World Series, is the perfect Bulldog. His mangled right hand made it a chore to throw the ball and swing the bat. So how did he tie a CWS record with four home runs? How did he drive in 11 runs, the most at the season-ending tournament in seven years? How did he field his position like a latter-day Brooks Robinson?

Don't quiz him about the whys and hows. He's just happy he survived two dogpiles -- one at Arizona State after the Super Regional, and the second after Fresno's 6-1 win over Georgia in the winner-take-all title game Wednesday. He's the answer to a dandy college baseball trivia question: Name the player who struck out a record 99 times in one season and recovered to be named the MVP?

Better still, Mendonca was one of many guys in sweat-

stained caps and dirt-caked uniforms who'd rather eat nails than give up on a game. They trailed 5-0 vs. Georgia in Game 2 of the finals and, a few innings from elimination, responded with 19 runs.

Then again, valley fans related to them because they seemed utterly normal. The Bulldogs opened a season of high expectations by losing twice to UC Davis and dropped nine of their first 14. As late as mid-May, they fell twice to Sacramento State. They were better suited to set records on Guitar Hero, not ESPN.

A few pundits explained away Fresno State's march to the championship as a team that finally reached its potential. Clearly, they weren't paying attention. Fresno's roster contained one potential star -- pitcher Tanner Scheppers -- and he was sidelined in May by a shoulder injury. The Bulldogs had to win the Western Athletic Conference Tournament just to receive an NCAA bid.

They even surprised their coach, Mike Batesole, when they beat Long Beach State in the Regional. They probably shocked themselves when they won two of three at Arizona State in the Super Regional. When they reached Omaha, they had become the Wonderdogs, the unstoppable force.

They confronted powerhouse lineups from premier conferences, high draft picks and All-Americans and didn't blink. Their body language said, "We're not losing," and, when facing the win-or-go-home game six times, they went 6-0.

"You won the championship," Fresno Mayor Alan Autry proclaimed, "for the underdogs all over the world."

The Bulldogs are an ideal marriage of team to region. They wear the green "V" for "Valley" on their batting helmets just like their football colleagues.

When pitcher Justin Wilson said, "We're not Cinderella, we're Bulldogs," you knew football coach Pat Hill soon would paint that line on a locker room wall.

As a Fresno State graduate, I'm especially pleased for a university that sometimes staggers and stumbles as a nouveau entry in big-time collegiate athletics. The Wonderdogs, however, provided something all of us desperately needed:

A breath of fresh air.

Bee sports columnist Ron Agostini can be reached at ragostini@modbee.com or 578-2302.