A generational joining of hands

There are guys whose names you’ve never heard who teared up a little on Sunday night and maybe even broke out the good bottle of their favorite celebratory beverage after Kansas claimed a regional baseball title. 

They’re former Kansas baseball players and most of them did a lot more losing than winning during their time as Jayhawks. 

They’re guys who became accountants and coaches, electricians and teachers, construction workers, doctors and full-time fathers. Guys who cared so much and played with such pride for putting on the Kansas uniform that they would’ve done anything to experience what the 2026 Kansas baseball team has in recent weeks. 

Guys who, in some small way, now feel like they did anyway because of what Tyson LeBlanc, Brady Ballinger, Boede Rahe and the rest of the current Jayhawks were able to accomplish during the last three days. 

More from KU's regional victory...

• Ballinger born to be in The Backyard

• Osoria delivers during surprise start at 2nd base

• Jayhawks clinch regional title

• Cook goes toe-to-toe with likely 1st-round pick

• Box Score

This was special. This was about more than the current team winning big and making history. This was a generational joining of hands. 

How cool is that? 

The new standing-room-only area down the third base line was full of former KU players. Others were seated throughout the stands. Some of them flew in from places like Phoenix or Gainesville, Florida. Others drove back from the surrounding states. And some of them still live in or around Lawrence. 

There are dozens more who couldn’t make the trip but followed every pitch, both on television and through text threads with former teammates.

They were there in spirit. And this was a weekend for all of them.  

You could’ve walked through that alumni area at any point last weekend and walked right past them without knowing who they were or what they once did on that very field. Some were all-conference guys. Some were cleanup hitters. Some started on the mound. Some played utility roles. And some barely played at all. 

Didn’t matter. They were all Jayhawks. They still are. And the 2026 team, with a huge assist to the boys from 2025 and the two seasons before that, have suddenly made that cool again. 

What a time to do it, too. 

College baseball is booming. And the sport has a real shot of capturing a huge part of the country’s baseball fan base that has grown tired of watching Major League Baseball become a clunky contest of economics.

KU struck gold by finding Dan Fitzgerald when they did, and what he and his coaching staff and four teams full of players have accomplished in recent years — especially the current team — may have changed the trajectory for the future of this program. 

The arrow, which once looked like a bunch of W’s strung together, is now pointed straight up. 

KU students, fans and donors have the baseball bug now. And they all want to be a part of this as the program moves forward. That kind of vibe can change a program profoundly. 

But it doesn’t happen without the right guys. Fitz is the right guy to lead it. We’ve seen that 20 times over. On the field. In the dugout. In press conferences. And in those awesome moments with his family. But more important than that is the fact that he and his staff know how to find the right guys to lead. 

The roster construction stuff has gone exactly the way Fitz said it would when he interviewed for the job. 

These are ballplayers. Grinders. Guys who love and respect the game and each other. Yeah, they live in the NIL era and they play together as teams formed in the transfer portal. 

But college football and basketball have the market cornered on most of those dollars. These baseball guys? They still play because that’s all they want to do and they’d go to great lengths to take infield one more time or step into the box for one more at-bat. 

That’s why they connect so cleanly to those former players who they’ve never met and may never know.

Those guys, many of them now in their 40s and 50s or older, can watch this team play and recall with great clarity the days when they used to do it. College students living life and playing baseball. Didn’t get better than that.  

Those memories make them smile and seeing Kansas win big in turn makes them feel like winners again, too. 

Beyond that, though, this group’s passion for playing the game simply for playing’s sake is why their successes and failures resonate so much with this fan base. 

Everyone likes a winner. And there’s no doubt that Hoglund Ballpark would not have received the facelift it did or set back-to-back attendance records without a winning team playing on its field. 

But when it’s likable guys who look like they’re having fun that are doing the winning, it doesn’t take long for people to go all-in on them. 

Call it the Melvin Council Effect if you’re looking for a modern-day term/player to describe it. 

In 10 months, the former KU point guard became as well-loved and appreciated as any KU player we had seen in the NIL era simply because people could tell he cared. 

Dan Fitzgerald’s guys care, too. And they’ve inspired a whole fan base to tune in, geek out and get behind their run. 

Before the Lawrence Regional began last Friday, former KU coach Dave Bingham, who led the Jayhawks to the 1993 College World Series, narrated a video preview for Kansas Athletics and called the moment “a reckoning.” 

“This isn’t just a return, it’s a reckoning,” Bingham said. “A program rewriting its history, reforged by new leadership, driven by purpose, every rep, every pitch, every swing.”

Well said, coach. 

The reps and pitches and swings will continue for at least one more week. 

There’s more history to be made, more texts to send and more baseball to be played.

— For tickets to all KU athletic events, visit kuathletics.com