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Our day began with word that a member of the Tar Heels baseball family had been critically injured. B.J. Dail, a sophomore from Raleigh who left the North Carolina team earlier this year and was pitching in the Cape Cod League, was struck by a car Sunday night.

The news about B.J. made baseball seem all that much more of a game. Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family as they go through an extremely tough battle.

To make matters worse, Tuesday night's game against Fresno State appeared to make us the Chicago Cubs in search of another World Series: We could not catch a break. Every hard-hit ball was an "at-'em" ball. Their third baseman made every unbelievable play, their pitchers threw strikes, and we had all of two walks. Added to the tight strike zone, and our pitchers giving up four walks and 13 hits, and it equaled a volatile night for Tar Heels baseball. For the first time on this trip, a Krispy Kreme doughnut could not sweeten the hard and nauseating lump each of us had swallowed. The loss, after riding so high, was a sickening one.

Nobody wanted to sign autographs, nobody wanted to eat, there was no joy. Omaha did not seem so much like Omaha anymore. The Carolina blue that had enveloped Rosenblatt Stadium had been blurred into Fresno State red, and everybody was jumping on the Bulldogs' bandwagon.

So the night ended with no songs on the bus. Long faces left complete silence on the trip home, something quite uncommon this year. As we rolled out of the parking lot, there was no applause, no people running alongside the bus. No cheers, no smiles, no laughter.

Even upon our arrival back at the hotel there were no crowds to greet us.

On the bright side, the College World Series is a double-elimination tournament. Folks, we are anything but out.