TIGER RAG NEWS SERVICES
At exactly 3:29 p.m. today, it happened 30 years ago on June 8, 1996, at Rosenblatt Stadium in Omaha, Nebraska.
Warren Morris hit the ultimate walk-off home run – the most famous home run in college baseball history and one of the most famous in baseball history. With Brad Wilson on third base after doubling to lead off the bottom of the ninth for LSU, the left-handed Morris came up as the Tigers’ ninth batter and sent Miami reliever Robbie Morrison’s first pitch over the right field fence for a two-run home run and 9-8 win over the Hurricanes for the national championship.
WARREN MORRIS TALKS ABOUT HOME RUN ON TIGER RAG RADIO
Just six weeks prior, Morris had surgery on his right wrist for a broken hamate bone and had to resort to bunting and half swings. It was his first home run of the season.
“The pitch almost looked like it came at me in slow motion,” Morris says in the book, Everything Matters in BasebalI: The Skip Bertman Story. “When the ball came off my bat, my first thought was, ‘Double.’ So, I was running hard down the line, hoping to get to second. As I’m running, I can see the ball making its way toward the right field corner. As the ball disappears, my immediate thought is, ‘I just hit a home run – my first of the season.'”
But the finality of it still had not hit Morris, a junior from Bolton High in Alexandria.
“It’s not until I touch first base, turn toward second and see the Miami infielders lying face down that I realize, ‘That’s not just a home run. We just won the championship,'” Morris said.
HOW TO BUY SKIP BERTMAN’S BOOK
Morris, now 52, has been vice-president of the Red River Bank in Alexandria since his Major League Baseball playing career ended after five seasons (1999-2003). He will be celebrating LSU’s national championship and his home run on Saturday at Spirits restaurant in Alexandria (1200 Texas Avenue), where he will be signing copies of Skip Bertman’s book with author Glenn Guilbeau of Tiger Rag from noon until 2 p.m..
It was 30 years June 8 that Warren Morris hit THE Walk-Off. He'll be signing my Skip Bertman book (He wrote the foreword.) on Saturday, June 13, in his hometown. pic.twitter.com/V3vBcolQtY
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) June 5, 2026
Morris wrote the foreword for the book.
“My single focus was just to stay aggressive,” Morris wrote. “Coach Bertman always taught us that most mistakes are made when you become passive. It’s better to take a calculated (not careless) risk by being aggressive. I can remember thinking, ‘Even if I strike out, I’m going down swinging.’ Before I knew it, I was back at home plate on the bottom of a pile of all my teammates. What a moment – a dream come true!”
Just a day before that national championship game, though, Morris didn’t know if he had a home run swing in him as he struggled to recover from the hamate bone surgery.
But that Saturday – under a beautiful blue sky without a cloud amid crisp temperatures in the low 70s – Morris felt different. Or, his wrist felt different.
“After batting practice on the day of the championship game, I stopped coach Bertman and said my hand felt as close to 100 percent as it had since the injury (on March 6 against Loyola),” Morris said. “For the first time, I could drive the ball and not just slap at it.”
Bertman smiled.
By 3:30 p.m., something monumental had happened in LSU’s and college baseball’s history that has never been duplicated.
“The world changed,” Bertman said.
“I can’t get tired of it,” Morris said of the many anniversaries since – 10, 20, 25 and now 30 years.
“It always ends well,” he said.
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