Inside Birmingham-Southern’s almost Hollywood ending

Shortly after the Birmingham-Southern College baseball team’s Hollywood run to the NCAA Division III College World Series ended in heartbreaking fashion, coach Jan Weisberg gathered the team’s seniors.

For those players, there was never going to be a next year, but the team’s elimination represented more than that. Two days earlier, the school had closed its doors for good and soon the team would scatter, unlikely to ever be together again.

Weisberg gave the team two options: Bus two hours to Pittsburgh and fly home or pile in the bus for a 730-mile ride back to Birmingham. It was an easy decision.

“Bus rides are where a lot of memories from college baseball are made,” first baseman Jackson Webster said. “I think we just kind of wanted to soak that time up together and just experience one last bus ride.”

Despite being eliminated on a walk-off home run in a game it once led 10-5, the atmosphere on the way home was celebratory.

“There’s a lot of joy for the team,” Webster said. “We made it to the College World Series. You play your best and things didn’t happen, but it was just a lot. The guys were just having a good time soaking it up, laughing. I mean, what else can you do in that situation?”

For a few weeks, BSC rode an incredible wave of success and emotion that, for a brief moment, captured national attention. With a documentary crew in tow, the team temporarily staved off extinction as if a movie plot had come to life.

All of the twists were there.

In March, Weisberg informed the team that after a prolonged battle to keep the 168-year-old school open, university leadership had succumbed to the realization that it was no longer possible. After years of financial trouble — some self-inflicted, some outside of the school’s control — there was not a clear path forward to sustainability.

With that news, BSC baseball was on the clock. The team hadn’t performed to its standards at that point, but played freely over the season’s final months to earn an at-large berth in the NCAA tournament. The opportunity itself represented a remarkable achievement given the school’s recent plight, but it wasn’t until the Panthers cruised through its four-team regional with a 3-0 record did outsiders start to notice.

That’s when a documentary crew came to town, social media buzz grew and national media outlets started to take an interest.

“Having all those cameras around was kind of strange, but I think we all warmed up to it pretty quickly and kind of realized we saw the vision of what’s going to be done,” Webster said. “We had a lot of fun with it. If anything, I think it made us play better just because no one wants to do bad on camera, right? It was actually a blast.”

It all might have been short-lived had BSC been eliminated in the super regionals the next week, but again, the Panthers found a way to keep living. This time against two opponents: Denison College, one of the best Division III teams in the country, and a virus that ravaged its way through the team, resulting in hospital visits and IV fluids for many players, which led to a depleted roster in jeopardy of not having enough players to compete. Neither obstacle was too big. The Panthers punched their World Series ticket with a pair of wins and returned to Birmingham having justifiably dubbed itself “America’s Team.”

For much of the program’s existence, external interest was all but invisible. Such is the nature of Division III sports. But when the Panthers started practice in advance of the World Series, their story became one that resonated outside of the sports world with even the “Today” show filming a segment about the team’s journey.

“It was super cool because Birmingham-Southern’s a special place to all of us,” outfielder Eli Steadman said. “It was just really cool to see the rest of the nation getting to kind of see a little glimpse of how cool and how special a place it was. It was just a surreal moment.”

Then the World Series started. Once in Eastlake, Ohio, BSC lost its first game and for the first time it faced a postseason game where the stakes were clear: lose and it’s over.

“I was sitting there and I was thinking for the last couple weeks it’s been incredible but today could be our last day together as a team,” Steadman said. “We didn’t lose in the regional and we didn’t lose in the super regional. So, we never really went into a game where I was like, ‘This could be our last game.’ So that was kind of a moment for me just on the bus after that loss. I was kind of thinking, ‘We gotta bring our A-game tomorrow.'”

It wasn’t an A-game performance that followed, but what ensued was much more memorable. Playing against Randolph-Macon College, BSC went ahead 4-0, then trailed 7-4 before going to the ninth inning tied at 7.

Webster started the inning in the on-deck circle, talking with former teammates in the stands who had come to support the team.

“I basically told ’em, I said, if I get an opportunity, I’m going to win this game,” said Webster, who had homered in the first inning.

Leadoff hitter Andrew Dutton walked on four pitches, so Webster assumed the pitcher would be focused on throwing a strike.

“I got to the plate, took a deep breath, and the first swing was horrendous,” Webster said. “The dude threw a pitch probably 54 feet and I took a horrendous swing on it. I feel like that got nerves and jitters out of the way.”

He fouled another curveball straight back to fall behind 0-2, then sat on a curveball before launching a game-winning home run in true cinematic fashion.

“I got all of it,” Webster said. “It was the coolest thing I’ve ever done.”

If script writers ever take a stab at the BSC story, it was the type of moment to end the movie on.

The reality, though, was that there was more baseball to play, and the next day the roles were reversed and BSC formally bowed out of the tournament and college athletics on a walk-off homer.

After the long bus trip home, the players cleaned out their lockers, moved out of their apartments and dorms and shifted gears for what’s next, which is a little bit of a mixed bag for everyone.

Some have decided to move on without baseball. Others will attempt to keep playing and many of them have fanned out to summer ball teams across the country.

But in a final ceremony on the field, the team shared its best memories before gathering at an Italian restaurant in town for a large team dinner with donors, athletic department staffers and even the bus driver from their last trip.

“Usually when you clean out your locker at the end of the season, you’re going to see everybody next year. So that was, that was pretty tough on everybody,” Webster said. “I think that’s when it really set in that this was it. I was pretty emotional about it, like pulling my name card out of the top and kind of just giving everybody hugs. That was a pretty emotional moment.”

Roll credits.