SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Waves of fans descended on Scottsdale Stadium an hour before kickoff, anticipation building with each minute closer to the first pitch.
They came to watch the Pac-12 baseball championship game. With this they received a dose of history.
With Arizona and Southern California atop the marquee, the undercurrent of Saturday night's game revolved around what could be finality: the end of the Pac-12 Conference as we know it.
“It's weird that it feels like it's the end,” said Detroit Tigers first baseman Spencer Torkelson, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 baseball draft after three seasons at Arizona State. “I guess it makes sense: Money talks at these conferences.”
Money certainly led to the demise of the once proud Pac-12.
With no imminent media rights deal on the horizon, the conference began to split, beginning with USC and UCLA's decision to depart for the Big Ten.
The eastward seismic shift caused a tsunami of desertions.
Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah opted to move to the Big 12. Washington and Oregon joined the Southern California schools on their way to the Big Ten. California and Stanford will be in the Atlantic Coast Conference next season.
That left Washington State and Oregon State clinging to the remains of a Pac-12 facing what is still an uncertain future.
“That's the sad thing about this, you start talking about those awards and you start thinking, boy, that's the last time this conference is going to be able to do that,” said Arizona's Chip Hale, the first person to win the Pac baseball award. -12. Player and Coach of the Year honors.
Unless the conference is resurrected, Hale and his Wildcats will emerge as the final Pac-12 champions after rallying from a three-run deficit to beat the Trojans 4-3 in front of a raucous pro-Arizona crowd at Scottsdale Stadium.
“What a great way to end, not only for the baseball season, but for the history of sports in this conference,” Hale said.
And if this is the end, the conference ended with a bang.
USC won its 21st men's beach volleyball national championship and the USC women won their fourth consecutive championship. UCLA women's water polo won its eighth NCAA championship with its third undefeated season.
Stanford's women's golf team won its second national title in three years in an all-Pac-12 final four and its men's gymnastics team also won a national championship. The Arizona State men won their first national swimming and diving title in March.
“When I was a kid, it was the Pac-10, then the Pac-12, it was a lot of fun to watch,” said Torkelson, who grew up in Petaluma, California. “I feel like there were so many great teams in all sports.”
The self-proclaimed Conference of Champions will leave a great legacy, although most of it will be relegated to the history books.
The Pac-12, founded as the Pacific Coast Conference in 1916, has won 561 national team championships (more than 200 more than the next closest conference) and more than 1,200 individual titles.
The conference was home to some of the greatest athletes in the history of college sports, from Jackie Robinson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to Tiger Woods and Katie Ledecky.
It was also the home of Pac-12 After Dark, those wild, high-scoring football games that ran well after midnight Eastern Time.
Arizona gave the conference one last dose after dark, scoring one run in the seventh inning, two in the eighth and walking a run-scoring single by Tommy Splaine in the bottom of the ninth, sending the Wildcats racing onto the field.
“It's the last Pac-12 game and it's a sad business, but now it's the Big 12's turn,” Hale said.
Now the Pac-12 may be fading and its legacy moving into the rearview mirror.
