One more day. One more game. That’s all Brandon McArthur could hope for and as the reality that there won’t be a tomorrow for the Florida Gators set in, he broke down in tears. Six years of near death, heartache, pain, struggle — you could fill in the blank with 100 more scenarios, situations and emotions here — hit him like a tidal wave and his valiant effort to stay composed gave way to a stream of tears that wouldn’t end.
He desperately wanted to put that Florida uniform on one more time and play one more game for the Gators, but of course, if he had been granted that wish of one more game, he would have hoped for one more after that. His Florida baseball career had to end somewhere. He just didn’t want it to end in Gainesville in front of the Florida fans who have been so supportive through a career that can only be described as a miracle.
He’s lucky to even be alive after he was sucker punched on University Avenue one night before he ever played a game at UF. He had brain surgery, lingered near death and somehow fought through that horrible experience and made it back to become Florida’s starter at third base on the 2005 team that made it to the championship of the College World Series. He battled bruises and shin problems his sophomore year, missed all but one game of his junior year when he had to have surgery on a ligament in his elbow and then played half a season in 2008 on a ruptured ACL.
You want to know what a warrior is? It’s a guy that hits .367 in the final 20 games of a season playing on a bad wheel.
The NCAA gave him one more year to play baseball and he came back because he loves Florida coach Kevin O’Sullivan, loves his teammates, loves being a Gator and loves baseball so much that he didn’t want it to end without one more trip to the College World Series. That was what was at stake Sunday night and that was the dream that ended when Southern Mississippi rallied for three runs in the bottom of the eighth inning to complete their comeback from a 6-1 deficit to an improbable 7-6 win that will send the Golden Eagles to Omaha for the first time in school history.
When Josh Adams hit into a game-ending double play in the ninth, the Golden Eagles threw caps and gloves high into the air and celebrated with a dog pile on the third base side of pitcher’s mound at McKethan Stadium. They earned their trip to Omaha by playing smart, solid baseball for two straight days to neutralize whatever home field advantage the Gators were supposed to have.
Southern Miss earned its trip to Omaha. Florida couldn’t have earned an Omaha trip on Sunday night, but the Gators could have extended this best of three series to a third game on Monday.
Could have. But they didn’t.
The Gators got home runs from Preston Tucker (first inning) and McArthur (second inning) before erupting for four runs in the third, two of them scoring on a two-out single up the middle for McArthur. That gave the Gators a 6-1 lead, which was enough to send Southern Miss ace Todd Mixon to the showers but that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
Once Mixon departed, that brought the Southern Miss bullpen into play and that spelled nothing good for the Gators. For the second straight game, Florida had no answers at the plate once Southern Miss pulled its starter. The Gators got one run in the final four innings in Saturday’s 9-7 loss, none Sunday in the final four innings against relievers Scott Copeland and Collins Cargill.
And just like Saturday, Southern Miss broke through against Florida’s bullpen. It was 6-4 in the eighth when the Gators brought on Billy Bullock, usually death on the close but on this night his fast ball was flat and wasn’t tailing like it normally does. Three improbable runs later, the game winner coming home on a botched double play, Florida’s season came to a screeching halt and Brandon McArthur’s career ended short of a fulfilling dream.
The dream might have ended for McArthur Sunday night but his inspiration to the Florida baseball program will be felt as long as Kevin O’Sullivan is the baseball coach.
“He’s meant everything to this program,” O’Sullivan said. “He exemplifies leadership, character, toughness competitiveness. I’ve told him a thousand times that his story is going to be told from team to team. And whenever he’s back in town in the fall coming to football games and weekends when he’s here in the spring, I want him talking to our team. I want those younger players to know about Brandon McArthur.”
O’Sullivan thought so much of McArthur that he encouraged him to seek that elusive sixth year that the NCAA reserves for players who have had extenuating circumstances or a series of injuries that kept them from getting in their four full years of eligibility. McArthur could have called it a career and moved on, but he chose to return one more season.
“Never once will I think I made the wrong decision by coming back here,” McArthur said. “Coach O’Sullivan really tried to talk me into it last summer and because of him that’s why I wanted to come back. I’ve built a relationship with these coaches and it’s been a great season.”
It was a great season for a young team that really shouldn’t have gone this far given all the injuries to the pitching staff and the reliance on freshmen and sophomores. The young guys banded together and followed the lead of McArthur, who always put the team ahead of himself. He played wherever coaches asked him, did whatever they wanted him to do, and along the way he earned the unparalleled respect of everyone involved with the Florida baseball program.
That’s why his emotions welled over as it began to sink in that his career as a Gator really was over. He fought to keep his composure and it was a good fight, just like the one the Gators put up against Southern Miss.
Only it wasn’t enough. The tears flowed.
“It’s a tough way to go out but I’ve had so much fun in my six years being here as a Gator,” he said. “It’s been unbelievable with the highs and the lows. I’ll always be a Gator and I’ll always support these guys 100 percent.”
The record books will show lots of guys who hit for a higher average, hit more homers and drove in more runs. What the record books will never show is how one player who gave his heart and soul to the University of Florida advanced the cause of the baseball program.
Brandon McArthur’s Florida baseball career might have ended Sunday night but he won’t be forgotten. You remember your warriors. Six years taught us that Brandon McArthur is a real warrior.