Colleges:

Baseball is a game of failure, but college baseball isn’t supposed to come with tragedy.

The tragedy that befell the Orange Coast College baseball program this season — the death of redshirt sophomore catcher Jourdan Watanabe on Feb. 27 — brought sadness, a dose of cold, stark reality, and the lesson survivors hope to take from any fatality: that life is not to be taken for granted.

Pirates’ sophomore star Brett Wallach said Watanabe’s death also brought togetherness and a sense of purpose to this team (34-13), which will attempt to capture the program’s first state title since 1980 in the four-team state championship tournament Saturday through Monday in Fresno.

“It makes you put a perspective on your life and how hard you really need to work for everything,” said Wallach, the Orange Empire Conference Player of the Year. “ You can’t take anything for granted. And if you want something, you’ve got to go out and get it.

“After what happened to Jourdan, we kind of came together as a team and I think we realized that we needed to take this thing seriously and do it for Jourdan.”

Wallach and his teammates, he said, think of Watanabe everyday, and reminders of the former all-conference performer, who was 20 when he died, are all around OCC’s Wendell Pickens Field.

Watanabe’s jersey No. 22 is painted in white on the green grass behind home plate and a six-foot-tall 22 is painted on the fence in foul territory in left field. There is also a JW rock formation set into the entranceway to the OCC bullpen, where players gather every day to pray, Wallach said.

Wallach, like his teammates, has 22 written on his cap. Some also wear wristbands with the No. 22 on them and most also feature black rubber wrist bracelets that honor Watanabe’s memory. Watanabe’s jersey is displayed on a hanger in the dugout every game.

“I think about it every day,” Wallach said of his late friend, who, he said, is the closest person to him to ever die. “To come out [to the field], that’s the first thing I think about really. It’s good memories, all the good memories. I didn’t really have any bad ones of him. Just playing with him and having fun out there. It’s all baseball stuff.”

Wallach said Watanabe’s memory also inspires the team on a daily basis.

“We all come out here to work,” Wallach said. We run around the field to start and, before we stretch in left field, we all stop (in the left-field corner) and tap on his number [painted on the fence]. It’s kind of like a check-in thing. And before and after every game, we go behind home plate and we get a break.

“We never will forget him,” Wallach said. “He was that kind of person.”

Wallach said the goal of a state title took on deeper meaning after Watanabe’s death.

“If that [state title] happens, it’s going to be emotional,” Wallach said. “It’s going to be pretty awesome; a good feeling inside.”

 Kent Watanabe, Jourdan’s father, threw out the ceremonial first pitch before OCC’s opening game in the Super Regional Friday at OCC.

 The No. 1-ranked UC Irvine baseball program continues to make news on the field, sweeping yet another Big West Conference series against UC Davis last weekend to improve to 40-12, 20-1 in the Big West Conference.

Friday’s victory over the Aggies clinched outright the program’s first Big West title.

But the field itself will be the focus before tonight’s 6 p.m. nonconference game against visiting UCLA.

The playing surface will be dedicated Cicerone Field in a pregame ceremony beginning at 5:30, in honor of UCI Chancellor Emeritus Ralph Cicerone, who was instrumental in reviving the baseball program that was dormant for nine seasons before the 2002 campaign.

Cicerone, now president of the National Academy of Sciences, was chancellor at UCI from 1998 to 2005. A former baseball player at MIT, he remains a devout UCI baseball supporter.

It is fitting that UCLA is the opponent, since Bruins Coach John Savage was the man who guided the Anteaters for the first three seasons after the program resumed.

 UCI officials deliberated thoughtfully before deciding to bid to play host to an NCAA baseball regional.

Regardless of a handful of legitimate reasons for some reluctance, I believe the correct decision was made. Whether UCI will be named a host site is yet to be determined. But after bidding to host a regional in 2007 and 2008, anything less would have represented regression for a program that has been and remains all about progress since it resumed.

BARRY FAULKNER may be reached at (714) 966-4615 or at [email protected].