At home in Omaha: Jerry Kindall, Gophers kept Cats a win away from 1956 title

Editor’s note: For more than six decades, the UA has been college baseball royalty, making 17 College World Series appearances and winning four national championships. The Star is re-living each of the team’s trips to Omaha.

1956: Oh, so close

What went down: Arizona advanced to its first College World Series finals before running into a familiar foe — and a glimpse of their future — in the elimination game. Minnesota beat the Wildcats 12-1 in the final, knocking out a UA team that climbed through the loser’s bracket to play the biggest game in its history. Minnesota also beat the UA 3-1 earlier in the tournament. Jerry Thomas dominated on the mound in the final, holding the Wildcats to one run on five hits while striking out four and walking one.

Minnesota was led in part by Gerald Kindall, who went 1 for 4 while hitting third and starting at shortstop. Sound familiar? Kindall, who would later go by Jerry, coached the Wildcats to national championships in 1976, 1980 and 1986. A rare Kindall error allowed Arizona to score its lone run in the final.

Following the game, Minnesota coach Dick Siebert heaped praise on the Wildcats.

“Arizona is a wonderful club. It’s probably the best team we have played this year,” he said. “We feel that it is a big thrill to defeat such an outstanding team as Arizona.”

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From the archives: The Star’s Abe Chanin wrote that the Golden Gophers “drilled man-sized holes in Arizona’s vaunted pitching ranks” on the way to their first national championship since 1948. He added:

The end came suddenly for Arizona, which had driven the comeback road courageously to gain the championship finals. Arizona blanked NYU, 3-0, in the opener, and then lost 3-1 to Minnesota in the second round. Then Arizona fought back by edging New Hampshire, 1-0, rapping Mississippi, 7-3, and blasting Minnesota, 10-4. But Minnesota was the championship team Thursday night. In the first inning, the Gophers cut loose for three hits and three runs and the ball game might have ended right there.

He said it: Arizona athletic director John F. “Pop” McKale put things in perspective.

“Winning or losing here isn’t important,” he told the Star. “I always feel darn good to get here in the first place.”

After Omaha: McKale said he wanted to win one more national championship before retirement. The UA wouldn’t win its first major-sport title for another 20 years, when Kindall’s Wildcats captured the 1976 College World Series. By then, McKale had been dead nine years.

The big number: 100. Arizona fans sent more than 100 telegrams to the Wildcats at the Paxton Hotel before the game, wishing the team good luck. The Star’s Lou Pavlovich wrote that “Arizona, missing a national baseball title by one game, still must point back to the girls billiard team at Arizona as the only national champs from the school.”