Omaha Fire Department jumps on Kentucky Baseball bandwagon for College World Series

Last week, Nick Mingione asked the city of Omaha to cheer for Kentucky in the College World Series. At least one group of Omahans listened.

You may have noticed Mason Moore wearing a fireman’s helmet in the dugout at Charles Schwab Field on Saturday. The helmet — and Moore’s Kentucky Wildcat hand puppet — got considerable screentime during ESPN’s interview with Ryan Hagenow, Kentucky’s dugout captain, in the fourth inning. Turns out the helmet was a gift for Cam O’Brien from the Omaha Fire Department, which adopted O’Brien as one of their CWS favorites when they heard the graduate reliever’s nickname was “The Fireman.”

“Guys, this is awesome,” Mingione said after Kentucky’s 5-4 win over NC State. “I made a plea last time I was up here for the people of Omaha if they were looking for a team. We get an email from the local fire department and said, ‘Hey, I heard one of your players is called a fireman. We’ve made you a fireman helmet’ and we brought it and had it in our dugout.”

Yesterday, the Omaha Fire Department shared their side of the story on Facebook, along with some pictures of the helmet.

“‘Hey, do you guys have a favorite in the CWS?’ Well, since our local teams aren’t in, technically we don’t, but we are a bit biased for nicknames. Kentucky, making their first appearance in the CWS, has a relief pitcher – Cam O’Brien #10 that they call ‘The Fireman’ because he’s brought in to put out fires. Well, hearing that, we had to make him one of us so we bought him a helmet with the UK logo on the front and our IAFF union logo on the side to show our support. Go Fireman Cam!! (This isn’t him in the photo – apparently when you have a fire helmet in the dugout it’s a popular prop!)”

O’Brien lived up to his Fireman nickname on Saturday, coming in for Trey Pooser in the seventh inning to get the final out with the score tied at 3-3. He got two more outs before handing the ball over to Jackson Nove. It was an all-hands-on-deck effort from the Kentucky bullpen, as Robert Hogan and Johnny Hummel also took the mound, with Hummel closing the game out.

“This win was very much how we win baseball games,” Mingione said. “We have to pitch and defend at a high level. Pooser was phenomenal. He was absolutely great. I thought Dan Roszel called a great game. I thought Cam O’Brien came in and made a good play on a bunt. He did his deal as a fireman.

“Jackson Nove got us a couple, got us a big out against a good hitter. We went left on left there. And then Johnny was phenomenal.”

Kentucky’s “Get Weird” movement catches on in Omaha

The Omaha fireman’s helmet is just one prop in Kentucky’s dugout. The Cats’ “Get Weird” mentality got plenty of love on the ESPN broadcast on Saturday. As mentioned, they did a segment on it, with Hagenow holding a Spiderman doll and balancing bubble gum on his head while he talked to Karl Ravech. As the game went on, the dugout got weirder, with Nolan McCarthy wearing over a dozen rally caps during extra innings, screenshots of which made the rounds on social media.

cap stackin' time pic.twitter.com/qePKu40LBP

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pic.twitter.com/JeKPMXNjAC

— CJ Fogler account may or may not be notable (@cjzero) June 15, 2024

This morning, ESPN’s Elizabeth Merrill wrote more about the “Get Weird” movement, which goes back to the Cats’ first series loss of the season at home vs. Kennesaw State in early March. By now, you’re probably familiar with the story of how Nick Mingione demanded more energy from his squad, challenging them to “get weird,” which led to the pink fuzzy hats, Spiderman memes, and more. Merrill’s article does include a few new nuggets, like how the Spiderman stuffed doll belongs to Max May, son of Kentucky Baseball SID Matt May, and how Hagenow decides which dugout antics to roll with and which stay on the cutting room floor.

He is open to many suggestions to help the team get weird, but Hagenow has his limits. Sometimes, a player will come up to him and ask, “Dude, why don’t we all just start singing this song?” But he is anti-chant — it’s just too cheesy for him.

“‘Not Afraid’ by Eminem was a thing for a little bit that they wanted to do,” Hagenow said. “I get a lot of ideas thrown at me every day. Some of it is just whether I’m feeling it or not. It’s just random stuff. We’ve got a lot of creative brains on the team, that’s for sure.”

ESPN

What weirdness awaits us tonight? We’ll find out starting at 6 p.m. CT/7 p.m. ET when Kentucky takes on Texas A&M on ESPN.