There’s a buzz in the air about three hours west along I-80, just across the border in Nebraska.

The smell of freshly cut grass permeates the nose and mouthwatering hot-dogs and hearty burgers tempt the taste buds as clouds of smoke rise up from grills around the park. For some unexplained reason hot dogs never taste better than they do right here. The air is so thick with anticipation you can reach out and grab it.

It’s not because Tim McGraw has come to town or because the next Eric Crouch has been discovered in some tiny little corner of the state. No, in the state where football is king and gridiron dreams reign supreme, there’s another sport that has found the spotlight, even if only for nine glorious days and nights.

They come from Texas and California, South Carolina and Indiana, Nebraska and Georgia and everywhere else to experience the national pastime at its purest. They come to see tomorrow’s greatest players before we know just how great they really are. Barry’s been here. So have Roger Clemens, Dave Winfield and Nomar Garciaparra. They’ve all been here at the College World Series (CWS) at “The ‘Blatt” in Omaha.

There’s something so pure and perfect about watching tomorrow’s superstars pursue their dreams today, before all the dollar signs, free-agent negotiations, lockouts and strike-shortened seasons. They play for the love of the game, while that still truly means something.

Perhaps James Earl Jones said it best in the movie “Field of Dreams.”

“The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again, but baseball has marked the time. This field, this game is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good and could be again.”

There is always an excitement that engulfs Omaha during this time of year, but this year it’s a little different. Nebraska made it to college baseball’s elite eight for the second straight year. There was a sense this year may finally be the year Nebraska finally broke through to make their mark. Sure, they were there last year, but after their “play two and barbecue” effort, the 24,000-plus Nebraska fans were hungry for more than just popcorn and peanuts this year. They wanted a couple of wins.

My blood runs red too, but it’s a funny shade of red, a mixture of cardinal and scarlet. I know these are dirty words around here, but I’m going to say them anyway. I’m going to say them even if it means being strung up on the crossbar at Jack Trice Stadium. I don’t care about the consequences to my personal safety. I am a Nebraska fan. There – I said it. I am a Nebraska fan unless they are playing the Cyclones. So I was cheering right along with the 24,000-strong sea of red at Rosenblatt Stadium and the throngs of others across the Husker Nation as the Big Red jumped out to a 7-2 lead over the number-two seed Clemson Tigers Friday night.

The jubilation slowly turned to disbelief and fear however, as the Tigers’ high-octane offense clawed their way back until the final dagger was driven in. With the score tied 10-10 in the bottom of the ninth and men on first and second, the Tigers pounced from their dugout as Clemson’s Jeff Baker sent a pitch screaming into the gap to drive in the winning run for an 11-10 victory. An instant classic, yes, but a heartbreaking defeat nonetheless, as the Big Red was handed its third one-run CWS loss in the last two years. The Huskers received more of the same Sunday afternoon as a two-run homer by South Carolina’s Yaron Peters in the top of the ninth sealed the Huskers’ exit with the Gamecocks’ 10-8 victory.

As heartbreaking as those losses were, more so was the realization that I will never feel the same sense of excitement sitting in these stands cheering on the Cyclones as they pursue CWS glory. No, America’s pastime has vanished from the sleepy little college town known as Ames, Iowa.

The possibility of seeing a Cyclone sea of red in Rosenblatt Stadium, which is little more than a mile from the Iowa border, will not happen. Some may say it was little more than a pipe dream anyway, but they would be forgetting the lessons taught by legendary Cyclone coach Leroy C. “Cap” Timm and our neighbors to the west. The boys up north can play with the big dogs from down south as long as they believe, even if no one else does. Coach Timm lead the Cyclones to College World Series berths in 1957 and 1970, going 2-2 in ’57. Even the final Cyclone team in the program’s 109-year history showed a willingness to put up a fight last year, capping off an amazing run to the Big 12 tournament by taking two out of three from regular season champion Nebraska in the final series of the season to make it to the tournament. It was a run that few outside the team and coaching staff seemed to notice or care about though.

Don’t forget the example set by the football team, either. Wasn’t it the same program, which now has back-to-back bowl game appearances and made it four straight against the Hawks, that only a few years ago went a dismal 1-10 with a single victory against Baylor?

What about Nebraska? It was not that many years ago, before Dave Van Horn was brought in to coach, and before Buck Beltzer Field gave way to Haymarket Park, that a berth in the College World Series was considered a pipe dream in Nebraska too.

After all, they’re a northern team and everyone knows that northern schools can’t field good baseball teams because of the inclement weather. Back then, there were usually fewer than a hundred fans there to check out a Husker ball game. In Van Horn’s first season as head coach, the total attendance for the entire season was about 7,500. Let’s face it, there was a time when Nebraska baseball was a joke. It would hardly make the 10 o’clock news unless a home run found its way through the passenger side window of a car passing by on the road just beyond the outfield fence, but I still loved it, much like I did Cyclone baseball.

Nebraska, unlike Iowa State, remained committed to its program, though, even in the tough times. They brought in a new coach and helped the Lincoln Salt Dogs build a new ballpark they both now share. Slowly, the program came to life. The team got better. The fans grew from fewer than a hundred to several thousand, to 8,500 at each game of this year’s super regional at Haymarket Park. None of this would have happened had Nebraska not remained firm in its commitment to baseball, its commitment to the national pastime.

I can remember Little League games that were bigger draws than some of the Iowa State baseball games, but instead of remaining committed, the team was folded and the players scattered across the country when times got tough. So there will be no sea of red from the state of Iowa at the College World Series, now or ever. The only cardinal red to be found in Omaha will be that of the Stanford variety, with the exception of a talent scout or two from the red birds of St. Louis.

What’s that you say? There’s still another baseball team in Iowa to cheer for? I would rather be strapped to a chair and forced to watch “The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” over and over until my senses went numb than cheer for the Hawkeyes. OK, maybe not, but you get the idea.

So there is no conflict for me on whom to cheer for during baseball season, and unless by some miracle the athletic department realizes the error of its ways, my wish to see the Cyclones someday return to college baseball’s field of dreams, will remain just that – a dream.

Mike Nichols is a senior in political science from Lincoln, Neb.