OMAHA, Neb. — He was away from the Florida dugout in the fifth inning Wednesday, running sprints by himself in a tunnel somewhere inside Charles Schwab Field. If he got the call to grab his glove late in the game, he wanted to be loose and ready. That’s how it usually happens for him, to prepare for a moment that might never come.
Outside, the Gators were trying to hang on to another win in what has become a white-knuckle Men's College World Series. How could Michael Robertson ever imagine he would be a Florida highlight play legend in another 90 minutes? Omaha has been full of the college game’s most glittering stars the past week, but here was a hero no one saw coming.
Robertson understood he might be needed in the end if the game were close. And all of Florida’s games have been close lately. The public had not seen a lot of him. He had not been to the plate with a bat in his hands here. The Gators had played nine NCAA tournament games before Wednesday and he had but one hit. Playing the outfield is his trade. His fielding percentage was .992, coming in. He had committed one error all season.
So with Florida ahead 3-2 in the bottom of the ninth and needing three more outs to finally shake loose from the persistent TCU Horned Frogs, it was time to play defense. Coach Kevin O’Sullivan moved starting centerfielder Wyatt Langford to left. Robertson, who had pinch run in the top of the inning and scored the go-ahead run, was inserted in center. Just in case a special play was needed.
“That’s what he came in to do,” Langford would say later in the locker room. “And that’s what he did.”
Locked in ‘til the final out 🔒
— Florida Gators Baseball (@GatorsBB)
Perhaps you’ve seen the replays. With two out and nobody on, TCU’s Brayden Taylor sent a drive to deep center. “Off the bat, I thought it was a home run,” Langford said. Robertson, barely in the game long enough to get his sea legs, raced back, back, back, back — and finally made a running grab before banging into the wall. Without the catch, Taylor would have been at second base, maybe third. Who knows what might have happened?
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Game over. Florida in the championship series, having survived three one-run victories in Omaha in what has become a white-knuckle World Series for them. They lead this MCWS in homers, and sighs of relief.
“It was do or die,” Robertson said. “I was going to run through the wall if I had to.”
Wasn’t this scene the very essence of baseball, and sport overall? The rainbow of emotions sweeping across one field?
There was Robertson, newly famous, running in to greet his cheering teammates. Now, more than ever, a key participant in their cause. “Seeing him not be afraid of the wall was huge,” Jac Caglianone said later.
“I pride myself in being able to help the club in any way I can,” Robertson said. “If that’s coming into the game right there and being able to make a play like that, that’s what I want to do, to help these guys win because they’re all my best friends.”
There was his coach, stunned in the dugout by another day of drama. “Maybe the camera got me at the final out,” O’Sullivan said. “I think I put both of my arms over the rail and just kind of laid there for 15 seconds. I couldn’t believe it. It was a typical way to end the ball game the way things have gone.”
There were the positively stricken Horned Frogs, the team of destiny. Until they weren’t. Especially Taylor. “The emotions that ran through my head after that... it’s hard to put into words right now,” he said much later.
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In the Florida locker room 15 minutes after the game, Robertson was finally getting a look at a replay of his handwork on a teammate’s phone. “Pretty cool,” he decided. “In the moment I almost kind of blacked out afterwards so I don’t totally remember it. But it looks all right on camera.
“Honestly I think it traveled further than I thought it was going to, but I knew I had a play.”
And he made it. Florida is doing that a lot these days; executing the defensive play at the critical moment or the good pitch at the right time. This is how a team that is 3-for-24 with runners in scoring position lands in the championship finals. The Gators’ seven home runs in this MCWS have helped, too. Going into Wednesday night’s game, the rest of the entire field had 10. Florida has scored 14 runs in Omaha and 10 have come across on homers.
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The Gators’ walk-off winning run against Virginia scored on a sacrifice fly. Their go-ahead run against TCU was on Cade Kurland’s infield hit, when Horned Frog shortstop Anthony Silva lost his footing trying to make a difficult throw from deep in the hole. Florida barely survived the Oral Roberts game when reliever Cade Fisher had to race out of the bullpen with scant warmup after O’Sullivan lost count of how many mound visits he had made. O’Sullivan can joke about that now. The words on the shirt he wore during batting practice Wednesday: ”Yes, I can count to 6.”
So it has taken all Gators on deck, and the poster player for that was the one with his back to the crowd and camera late Wednesday afternoon, sprinting back to the wall in centerfield, a fast-moving orange jersey on a mission.
“I think it goes to show what kind of chemistry we have,” Robertson said. “Everybody’s playing for one another. I think that’s probably the most important thing this time of the year.”
His coach thinks so, too.
“It takes a collective group. Like Michael hasn’t played a lot, makes a great catch in centerfield,” O’Sullivan said. “It’s not easy to get to this point. It’s just not. I know I overstate it and say it over and over, but we just played three one-run games and they’re all nail-biters down to the end.”
Indeed, Florida is the first team in 21 years to win its first three MCWS games by one run. Only three others have done it in history.
Quite a show they have going on here. Something new every day. Wednesday it was a redshirt freshman from Venice, Fla.
