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Kyle Peterson grew up watching the College World Series. He played at Omaha Creighton Prep, went off to pitch at Stanford and twice returned to Omaha with the Cardinal. He was the 13th overall pick in the 1997 draft and pitched professionally through 2001 — including parts of two seasons in the majors — before injuries cut short his career. He’s been an ESPN baseball analyst since 2003.

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World-Herald: With the bats dialed down in the college game, how has that helped pitchers?

Kyle Peterson: We’ve seen a progression, and guys are pitching the way you’re supposed to pitch. Ideally, you pitch to contact early in the count, and then if you get two strikes, maybe you’ll try to miss the bat. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, speaking from experience, you were trying to miss the bat every time — and that’s not the way the game was intended to be played. If you look around the country, walks are down, and that’s because guys are realizing that you can throw more strikes. Guys can still run it out of the park, but it’s not done with the regularity that it was before.

WH: What do you think about the CWS moving out of Rosenblatt, and what do you think of TD Ameritrade?

KP: Obviously the setting here is phenomenal. … They did a heck of a job with the place. It was expected, given the importance of it. The tough thing is, you knew there would be a point where they had to go away from Rosenblatt, and you’re never going to get the feel, the way it looked and the history. It was like going to Fenway or Wrigley. … You didn’t really care that the seats were small or that you’ve got to wait longer to get to the bathroom, because of where you’re at. Rosenblatt had that. But this place (TD Ameritrade) speaks to the game right now, how the college game has grown and how the interest level has grown. It’s incredible to me what’s happened the last 15 years. New stadiums are being built on campuses across the country — and we’re talking adult-dollar stadiums … $30 million, $35 million, $40 million. The game is looked at differently by athletic departments, and I think that’s awesome. You’ve seen the product get better.

WH: What are your favorite memories of the CWS as a kid growing up, as a player and as a broadcaster?

KP: Paul Carey’s home run in 1987, for whatever reason, was when I started liking Stanford — I think I was 11. Creighton (in 1991) is right at the top. … I still remember (Wichita State outfielder Jim) Audley’s throw and how the feeling in the stadium was so different than how I’d ever seen it as a kid growing up around that. When I was really little, I remember the (Miami mascot) Maniac was there every year … didn’t matter if Miami was there or not. And (I remember) standing by the bus as teams left, trying to get a hat or a glove or whatever they would give you.

As a player, the thing I remember the most was when (former PA announcer) Jack Payne announced my name for the first time. I’d heard him announce so many names over the years, and we’d all goof around on the bench in high school, announce guys the same way Jack did in the Series, and then to hear him announce your name the exact same way, that was pretty cool. I remember my freshman year a lot better than my junior year, because I pitched better. I got drafted on the field. … We were about to play Auburn and our SID came out and told me that Milwaukee had just taken me. That was pretty cool, too.

As a broadcaster, the last game always will stick out, but the Nebraska-Arizona State game (an 8-7, 11-inning win by Arizona State in 2005), when (Jeff) Larish hit all those (three) home runs (for the Sun Devils), that was as electric as I’ve ever seen that place.

WH: What are your thoughts on how college baseball and the CWS have grown?

KP: Everybody says, ‘Oh, it’s getting too corporate.’ Well, the reality of it is, the more corporate it gets, the more other people are paying attention. Because those guys aren’t going to spend the money in advertising and setting up booths like this (at the CWS) if it doesn’t appeal to a lot of people. It’s not college football and it’s not college basketball, and I hope it never becomes like those, but it’s definitely not this neat little sport that nobody pays any attention to except for two months out of the year.

— Rob White

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