After Sunday’s night’s dramatic victory over Missouri, Louisville baseball Coach Dan McDonnell hoped in vain that the crimes against humility perpetrated by third baseman Chris Dominguez wouldn’t overshadow what the gritty Cardinals had accomplished in the Columbia Regional.

G.J. McCarthy photos

Louisville third baseman Chris Dominguez, right, drew cheers from the Cardinal faithful and boos from Missouri fans during player introductions before yesterday’s game at Taylor Stadium.

It was a reasonable request, considering that the first-year coach had guided a nondescript program - whose only previous regional appearance was 2002 - to the verge of a Super Regional.

It was a reasonable request that went completely unheeded, of course. Missouri’s suddenly sizable and passionate fan base stewed overnight about the no-longer cuddly underdogs from Louisville.

A startling number of those fans - 2,199, to be exact - took a long lunch break yesterday afternoon and returned to Columbia’s newest hot spot. They hoped to see Dominguez get his comeuppance and the Tigers sew up the regional title.

But that plan went haywire from the start. With boos ringing in his ears, Dominguez cracked a grand slam home run with his first swing of the bat and added a double and a three-run homer in his next two appearances. MU starting pitcher Aaron Crow didn’t survive the first inning. The final margin was 16-6.

When the topic turned to Dominguez afterward, the tone from the Tigers was grudging respect rather than the thinly veiled disgust of the night before. They had lost to a team that, if not better, was certainly hotter than they were. And no one could dispute that the weekend’s breakout star was Dominguez, who backed up his bravado and then some.

Thus ended a most unusual four-day weekend in Columbia. College baseball was king. The words "standing room only" and "Taylor Stadium" were used in the same sentence. The ballpark was the place to see and be seen, even if that meant parking somewhere near Hartsburg and trudging up K2 an hour before the game to find an empty bleacher seat. Some were lucky enough to catch a ride up the hill from the golf-cart Sherpas, but walking built character, as well as calf muscles. These were serious fans, riveted to the action, their emotions rising and falling with each pitch.

The weekend drama reached its crescendo on Sunday night with an unforgettable moment. The Tigers and Cardinals were locked in a 2-2 tie in the eighth inning. It was the sort of game Missouri had won all year long, as it compiled an 11-1 record in one-run games during the regular season.

It was Dominguez, of course, who changed everything.

After crushing a 400-foot drive just inside the left-field foul pole, the redshirt freshman posed, preened, taunted, backpedaled and bunny-hopped around the bases. It was quite a production. Naturally, this enraged MU catcher Trevor Coleman and Coach Tim Jamieson, who conducted a lively debate on ethics with home-plate umpire Bill Speck.

One of the beauties of baseball, with its enormous imaginary book of unwritten rules, is that you can argue the definition of classiness while cursing profusely. This one was a clear case of bush-league behavior, though, a point McDonnell didn’t really dispute after the Cardinals’ 4-3 victory. The coach did remind everyone that Dominguez was an emotional 20-year-old kid and not the second coming of Pol Pot, but McDonnell won few converts.

Baseball is a slow game that nurses grudges. It isn’t big on bygones, as Steve Bartman can attest from wherever the Witness Protection Program has him stashed.

Missouri’s first priority yesterday was winning the game and guaranteeing another weekend of fun at Taylor Stadium, where the Tigers would host an Oklahoma State team they had beaten four times in the previous few weeks. But a victory over Louisville would be that much sweeter if it involved blowing a few fastballs past Dominguez … or sticking one in his ribs. Dominguez surely knew that he needed to play like the blue-chip recruit he was in 2005 and not the .250 hitter he was in the regular season, lest he be heckled back to Bluegrass country.

In retrospect, Missouri pitchers would have been better off plunking Dominguez every chance they had, although the situations didn’t dictate that course of action until the game was out of reach. Dominguez delivered his third and fourth homers of the regional and sprinted around the bases so fast he nearly overran the guys in front of him. Only once did an MU pitcher seem to be throwing at him, and Scooter Hicks’ inside fastballs didn’t connect, leading to a fifth-inning walk.

There was edginess elsewhere in the game. McDonnell complained frequently to umpires about this and that. A Missouri reserve was ejected for mouthing off. The atmosphere in the stands turned a bit from the celebration of a weekend of promise to the frustration of another close-but-not-quite season from an MU athletic team.

As the Cardinals, who were no sure thing to even make the NCAA Tournament field, formed a dog pile on Simmons Field and celebrated their victory, the names of the all-regional team were announced over the PA system. When Dominguez was revealed as the Columbia Regional MVP, the departing fans unleashed one last volley of boos over their shoulders.

They had to take it, but they didn’t have to like it.

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