A&M’s juggernaut baseball team was rolling through the NCAA regionals unbeaten and untested. The electricity inside Olsen Field that day could singe the hair on the back of your neck.

The Aggies, ranked No. 1 for 11 weeks of the season, were just one win away from their first College World Series appearance since 1964. A tired LSU team stood in the way of the trip to Omaha, and it seemed inconceivable that the Tigers could beat the Brazos Bombers at home, much less twice in the same day.

Then it happened... the cruelest of doubleheaders for the maroon and white and their legion of newfound fans. LSU, following a 13-5 win in the Sunday opener, stole a 5-4 nightcap in 11 innings, ending one of the most glorious and tortuous seasons in Texas A&M athletics history.

The best baseball team in America was dead. The Aggies were eliminated in front of the home folks, as a mind-boggling record of 58-5 spun out of control to 58-7.

"The hurt that (the fans) felt when we lost to LSU was enormous," said Mark Johnson, A&M’s head coach the last 14 seasons. "Some of it was anger. I probably got more letters and phone calls in a 48-hour time that year than ever before. It wasn’t just a game... they were breathing with us."

And crying. And wondering. And, 10 years later, still remembering.

It’s been a decade since one of the best teams in school history was hit in the gut like a pitcher on the bad end of a John Byington come-backer.

To comprehend the shock of that May day, you first must conceive of what the Aggies had accomplished leading up to the NCAA regionals:

• A&M started the season with a 26-0 record, losing its first game to Oklahoma State on March 19 in the Dixie Classic tournament in Shreveport.

• The Aggies then reeled off 14 straight wins to move their record to 40-1, matching the best start in NCAA history (Texas went 40-1 in 1977).

• A&M then fell to 40-2 when Texas pitcher Kirk Dressendorfer stymied the offensive arsenal of A&M in a 6-2 Longhorn victory at Olsen Field. It would set up a Sunday doubleheader for the ages, however, as Byington exacted unbelievable revenge and hit two game-winning home runs to beat the Horns, 18-14 and 8-5.

• A&M scored nine runs in the bottom of the ninth inning in the first game and eventually beat its rival four of five times that season, having beaten Texas only once before since 1984.

• The Aggies once scored 17 runs in one inning, embarrassing a helpless Nebraska team, 21-4.

• A&M hit 88 home runs in ’89, 31 more than its next competitor (UT had 58) in the Southwest Conference.

• The Aggies tied for the SWC title with Arkansas and failed to reach the College World Series, yet still finished the season ranked No. 2 in the major polls.

But, as much as the numbers were overwhelming and worth recalling, the 1989 Aggie baseball team will be remembered for much more than its nasty bats and its double dip of agony with the Bayou Bengals.

The ’89ers started the magic at Olsen Field. They were the first creators of Aggie Alley (then the Pack on the Track) and the first to make "Big Bad John" a hit again.

Most of all, the Aggies were one entertaining, bad-to-the-bone bunch of baseball players.

The lineup read like the ’27 Yankees. In fact, one current Yankee began his rise to stardom at Olsen Field, as Chuck Knoblauch joined players like Byington, center fielder Kirk Thompson, infielder Terry Taylor and first baseman Mike Easley.

Sure, Byington grabbed a lot of the headlines, especially after the Hollywood-scripted games against Texas, but Taylor actually led the team in home runs with 17, compared to Byington’s and Eric Albright’s 15 apiece.

Taylor, Knoblauch and Byington were the terrific trio that came to A&M as freshmen in 1987. They were the type of players who had typically marched blindly to Austin to play their college baseball.

"Basically, that’s when Texas was dominating the state," Johnson said. "They had their pick of the litter. With one phone call (Texas coach Cliff Gustafson) was getting them. I remember spending 20-25 hours recruiting kids, and in one phone call, we’d lose them.

"But our first major recruiting class was that (’87) class. We felt like we had something special going. We just couldn’t get the blue-chip pitcher in. That’s the thing that was missing. I said if we could just get a couple of pitchers, we could take this team to Omaha."

Indeed, the Aggies had the bats and the defense. The pitching, despite its team earned-run average of 3.69, lacked the dominant name like a Dressendorfer for Texas, or as in 1993, a Jeff Granger for the Aggies.

That A&M baseball team was like UCLA’s football team last year — flashy, high-scoring and... forced to sit at home to watch the national championship.

"It was such an offensive-oriented team, but we weren’t an unbelievable powerhouse pitching-wise," Johnson added. "People grabbed a hold of them because they always came from behind. It was magical

"I think the people who have been in the community for a long time will always remember the ’89 team by name. I hear that a lot. No one remembers the ’93 team. The ’89 team just had a ring to it."

The 1993 Aggies almost grabbed the big ring, winning the Southwest Conference, the Central I Regional at Olsen Field and advancing to the CWS.

LSU tormented the Aggies again with a come-from-behind 13-8 win over A&M, sending the Aggies into the losers bracket, where they would later be eliminated from the CWS by Long Beach State.

And, yet, for all the ’93 Aggies accomplished — and Johnson still must call that team his best ever — the ’89 group still carries legendary status in College Station.

"There’s no question the ’89 team was the team that gave us the recognition and the credibility," said Johnson, who has guided the Aggies to seven regional finals in the last 14 years. "We had won the (SWC) championship in ’86 and got little credit for that. It was no big deal. And it wasn’t a great ballclub.

"We didn’t turn the program around until ’89. Even in ’88 and ’87, we had good teams and players like Scott Livingstone. But there wasn’t the passion and electricity in the air that all of a sudden emerged in ’89."

Much of the atmosphere that flows through Olsen Field today (see related story on pages 14-18) can be traced back to when Byington was slamming homers and public address announcer Derrick "D.D." Grubbs was spinning tunes from the press box.

The fans came out in droves in ’89, as the total attendance of 143,410 for 45 games remains a school record. Yet, the record average attendance was reached last season with 3,717 coming to the ballpark, and that number is in serious jeopardy this spring.

"D.D., I think, played a part in (the attendance increase)," Johnson added. "He got the interaction going between the fans, and the ’89 team was a good team to interact with because there were personalities. The fans became a part of that team.

"I think (the No. 1 ranking) got the attention. But I think when people came to the ballpark, there was a fever there. It wasn’t just to come watch a ballgame."

THE TOUGHEST WEEK OF ALL

While the Olsen Field magic ran out on Memorial Day weekend in 1989, the pain of losing to LSU twice didn’t sink into the players’ hearts until the following Monday morning.

Johnson called his final team meeting of that season, and hardly anyone in the locker room could keep from breaking down.

"The players were crying because it hadn’t hit them after the ballgame," Johnson recalls. "I could hardly talk. I had gotten up at 3 o’clock in the morning because I couldn’t sleep. I was just so torn for the kids. That was a rough, brutal day."

And if the dagger hadn’t been sharp enough, the week of the impending College World Series opened wound after Aggie wound. Press conferences — which included fellow SWC foes Arkansas and Texas — usually weren’t finished until some coach or player chimed in about A&M’s absence from the CWS.

"I was so glad when the World Series was over" Johnson said. "That was a long, long week. But I don’t know of another team that has not made it to the College World Series and finished even in the top eight (in the polls). To finish No. 2, you say what a compliment that is. That was one of the things I really appreciated."

Byington, who is an assistant coach with fellow ’89 team member Jason Marshall at McMurry University, said he will always believe the Aggies could have won it all in 1989 had they just beaten LSU.

"I think we dominated enough that year that people knew we had a team that should have been there," Byington said. "Everyone probably knew from the start of the season that we probably had the best team. That’s the nature of baseball — LSU got hot at the right time."

Ironically, the legacy of the 1989 Aggie baseball team continues to evolve. When the team is introduced during 10-year reunion activities at Sunday’s home game with Kansas, the Aggies of today continue to battle for conference titles, regional berths and CWS trips.

A&M came within one game last year of heading to Omaha, and it could have its best shot since 1993 to reach the CWS this spring.

A&M baseball is hot right now, and the ’89 team started the fire.

"It’s a credit to Coach Johnson and his staff," Byington added. "Even though he hasn’t had quite that good a year as ’89, he pours out consistent winners. I hope they get back to the World Series, but I think the program itself is a very special program.