A day before LSU baseball faces Tennessee in the Super Regionals, Tigers coach Paul Mainieri didn't give the Volunteers any extra bulletin-board material, in fact he may have taken some of it down.
When asked about the comments regarding the noise in Knoxville in an interview on SportsTalk with Kristian Garic and Bobby Hebert, Mainieri was quick to apologize if his words had been taken as a slight to the Volunteers faithful.
“Listen, I made some comments after the game. I didn’t really mean to be as offensive as they were portrayed to be. Honestly I apologized today at the press conference for putting my foot in my mouth," Mainieri said. "I really wasn’t meaning to insult anybody. The Tennessee fans were no different than SEC fans anywhere else, including Alex Box Stadium. They root for their team, and you know, a handful of fans were riding Tre Morgan and I just was making a comment and answering a question somebody asked me about how our freshmen reacted to their first game on the road in the SEC. And I was just mentioning about how they were riding Tre Morgan and he didn’t handle it very well for the first few innings of the first game. He adjusted as the weekend went on and he handled it great after that."
Can't see the embed below? Click here.
The comments in question came after a Tennessee sweep of the Tigers in March, LSU's lone road series loss in SEC play.
“Listen, even though there wasn’t a huge, huge crowd at Tennessee, it was an extremely hostile environment,” Mainieri said at the time. “They were nasty. They were being nasty, nasty.”
Related
LSU's Drew Bianco was asked about the atmosphere earlier in the week, and he attributed any sense of more noise to the limited capacity at the time allowing individual voices to be heard. With a full house expected this time around, he didn't expect anything out of the ordinary dull roar.
Mainieri echoed that sentiment in his Friday press conference, and added that fan intensity is what makes SEC play unique and exciting -- and not unlike you'd find at other ballparks around the conference, including Alex Box Stadium.
"The Tennessee fans are great, just like LSU fans and every other city in our league. They love their team and they root for their kids. And a few fans get on the other team to try to distract them away from doing their job. I really didn’t mean to insult anybody and I apologize if I did," Mainieri said. So I wouldn’t expect anything different than they’ll be rooting like crazy for their Tennessee Vols, and our fans will be rooting for our team. And there’ll be some people that’ll be getting on our kids, but you find that everywhere."
LSU and Tennessee face off in the Super Regional beginning Saturday at 6 p.m. First pitch for Game 2 will be at 11 a.m. or 2 p.m., and the if-necessary game on Monday will at 3 p.m. or 6 p.m.
Related
━━━━
MORE FROM MAINIERI'S INTERVIEW
HOW ARE THE LSU 'ROAD DOGS' FEELING?
“I feel like they’re relaxed and ready to go. What they did this past weekend gave them a lot of confidence, and I think they feel pretty good about themselves right now. They’re excited about playing this weekend. It’s no secret that we took it on the chin here back in March. We were very competitive. We lost three games by a total of four runs. We outhit this team 31-20 in the three games, we just came up short in the three ballgames. I don’t think we felt like we were overmatched and we got whipped badly, we just didn’t find a way to win the games. It was a little frustrating for us, and I think the kids are excited for a little bit of redemption and showing that we can beat these guys. It won’t be easy. They’ve got a great ball club and they’re going to be in their home ballpark and they’re playing with a lot of confidence as well.”
Related
━━━━
ARE YOU FEELING AT PEACE WITH THE DECISION TO RETIRE?
“I think that’s pretty accurate … I've been laboring mentally for a long time about this decision that I made a couple weeks ago, and feel a little bit relieved having made the decision. … Just enjoying every moment that I’m still out there on the field with the boys. And trying to do the best job that I can for them and hoping that we can finish the season strong. It was an exciting weekend. I’m really proud of the kids that we lost the first game and didn’t give up, and we did something that was pretty significant that had never been done before. … I was excited for them, not so much for me. I was excited for them that they got to experience something that they’ll cherish for the rest of their lives."
━━━━
HAVE YOU SEEN A LOT OF LSU FANS OUT THERE?
“Not yet. I’m sure that there’s going to be some. The NCAA requires the host school to give us I think 600 tickets, so I’m sure we’re going to use those. I’m sure they’ll be loud. They were loud out in Eugene and they traveled all the way across the country to do that. Obviously Knoxville’s not quite as far as Eugene, Oregon. I have a feeling there’s going to be some good loud LSU fans. Obviously they’ll be outnumbered, but not by a terrible amount. I think the stadium only holds about 5,000 people. I think the Tennessee folks are pretty excited, but I think our LSU fans will show up and make themselves noticed here as well.”