Kirk Saarloos excited for the future of TCU baseball

Kirk Saarloos is excited about the future of the TCU baseball program following the squad’s College World Series appearance.

The Horned Frogs fell to Florida in the CWS semifinals but had an exciting 2-2 stint in Omaha. But now, it’s time to get back to the big stage and win a national title.

Saarloos is excited about future opportunities at TCU.

“I mean, there’s so many stories,” Saarloos said. “One that pops in my head right now is our managers. You know, they donate their time to TCU baseball. They’re there longer than we are, whether it be shagging fly balls or helping hit fungos or doing the laundry.

“Those are the people that make a program special is when you have people that don’t ever get any credit, they’re kind of behind the scenes, they don’t get the credit, but they make our program go.”

Saarloos even shouted out the bullpen catchers. It’s all about doing the little things.

“To our bullpen catchers. It’s all those things,” Saarloos said. “You don’t really realize until you don’t have those people that want to donate their time. And we have a huge manager pool of kids who just love TCU baseball and love to serve. And those guys are pretty special in our program and they’re treated just like our players are.”

TCU made its first trip to Omaha in six years. But under Saarloos, this should be a regular thing moving forward.

The College World Series berths are pretty nice when looking at the program history books.

“And TCU baseball, we haven’t been here in six years,” Saarloos said. “And the guys were tired of looking at the 2010, 2014, ’15, ’16 and ’17 signs in left field and the old pictures that are in our classroom to all those different things.

“And we’ll have some updating to do because this group did some special things that are going to be, they’ll be able to come back and show their kids and do all those things because they definitely, I think, was one of the best stories of the year in terms of who they are and what they did.”

Despite ending the season short of a national title, TCU and Saarloos made memories together that won’t be forgotten.

“And, so, super proud of the fact that they won’t feel it right now,” Saarloos said. “But when they come up for air and understand and realize how difficult it is to get here and the way they played, there’s some long-lasting memories that won’t go away.”