But, over the last four years, the baseball program, long one of the biggest underachievers on campus, has advanced to Omaha to play in the College World Series, three of the past four seasons, finishing second in 2010, and starting off this year's tournament with a 2-1 win over #4 national seed LSU. UCLA finished third in the Pac-12 this season behind Oregon State (which made it Omaha and lost its first game, but won its second) and Oregon (which did not make it to Omaha)

The Bruins success can be summed up in one word: pitching. Although the team does not have any first round draft pick pitcher like it did in 2011 with Gerrit Cole (who beat the Dodgers while pitching for the Pirates on Sunday and was the #1 overall pick in 2001) and Trevor Bauer (#3 overall in 2011 by Arizona, but traded to Cleveland after Bauer and the Diamondbacks clashed over his training methods), but the staff is still strong. Led by starters Adam Plutko (who held the powerful LSU offense to one run on Sunday), Nick Vander Tuig, and Grant Watson, the staff ERA is 2.66. Coach John Savage has been one of the most effective recruiters of pitching talent in the country.

The bullpen has been even stronger for UCLA. The nation's top reliever, David Berg, saved 22 games and has an 0.87 ERA for the year. Berg does not throw particularly, but has a deceptive submarine delivery. Freshman James Kaprielian usually pitches the eighth inning and has a 1.63 ERA.

UCLA has an offense straight out of 1968. The team batted .250 overall and hit just 19 home runs in 62 games. Shortstop Pat Valaika led the team with just five home runs and a slugging percentage of .397. Nevertheless, UCLA still managed to outscore its opponents by 102 runs on the season, which doesn't make them the 1927 Yankees, but it was not as if UCLA eked out every win like they did on Sunday.

Judging by the ESPN broadcast of Sunday night's game, announcers Mike Patrick and Orel Hershiser, seemed to think that UCLA would have been better giving an unconditional surrender to the Tigers, described by Baseball America in their CWS preview as "...the favorite to win the national championship. The Tigers are a complete club without any major weaknesses, and they are playing their best heading into the CWS."

Most of the crowd shots during the game focused on the numerous LSU fans who had made the trek up to Omaha, bedecked in their distinctive purple gear, usually with a funny hat of some kind. The Tigers average over 10,000 fans per game, while UCLA's home stadium seats just 1,200. Mostly friends and family have made the trip to Nebraska to root on the Bruins. (UCLA's commencement ceremonies were over the weekend as well.)

During Sunday's game, LSU took a 1-0 lead on a home run by Mason Katz. UCLA tied the game up in a very typical UCLA fashion this season. In the sixth, center fielder Brian Carroll reached second on a bunt after LSU catcher Ty Ross made a throwing error. A ground out moved Carroll to third and he scored on a sacrifice fly by Eric Filia.

UCLA scored the go-ahead run in the eighth. Pinch hitter Ty Moore singled and Christoph Bono ran for him. Carroll sacrificed him over (UCLA's fourth sacrifice of the game). After a fly out, Filia hit a grounder to short that handcuffed LSU's Alex Bregman and Bono scored to take the lead. This also sent Patrick and Hershiser off to ask the production team for UCLA anecdotes to add to the broadcast.

LSU put three men on base in the 9th against Berg, but a double play slowed down the rally and UCLA prevailed 2-1 and advanced to play North Carolina State on Tuesday night at 5 pm on ESPN2. If the Bruins were to win that game, they would be off until Friday. If they lose, they would play the winner of the elimination game between LSU and North Carolina on Thursday.

UCLA still has a tall order to win the championship. Baseball America considered UCLA to be the 7th most likely team to win the College World Series. The only team given less of a chance was Indiana, who also won its opening game in its first ever appearance in Omaha, but lost Monday night to Mississippi State to be put into an elimination game against Oregon State on Wednesday. Since 2006, the CWS has been won by a Pac-12 or SEC team all but one year. (Fresno State of the WAC in 2008.)

The narrative around UCLA will be "grit" and "determination." However, college baseball has changed in recent years as the aluminum bats have been made less elastic and balls are no longer hit as hard. And the College World Series moved from Rosenblatt Stadium, which favored hitters, to TD Ameritrade Park, which has much deeper power alleys and has given up fewer home runs during its three-year run as host of the CWS.

UCLA may not be able to make it all the way to the championship series (June 24-26), but they have already turned the College World Series upside down by knocking off LSU. No team in Omaha has as much experience playing there as the current Bruins squad. Infielder Cody Regis is playing in his third CWS.

This year's UCLA baseball team may not have anyone who will be appearing in the majors as fast as Cole or Bauer, but there were still seven Bruins chosen in the recent MLB draft, although none before the sixth round. UCLA will have to just muddle through with a team that has managed to go 45-17 this season in a decidedly unspectacular, but highly successful fashion. UCLA swept through its subregional at home against San Diego, San Diego State, and Cal Poly, and then surprised the #5 national seed, Cal State Fullerton, with two straight wins at Fullerton's Goodwin Field in the superregional.

Personally, I would like to see UCLA win a College World Series, so people will recognize the baseball cap I wear as a UCLA cap (it's blue with a gold B in the front and UCLA embroidered on the back brim). Some people think I'm wearing a Brooklyn Dodgers cap (which would be a different shade of blue with a white B that is a different font) or some alternate Boston Red Sox cap (which would be dark blue with a red B) on it. I want to finally say, "Yeah, I was in to these guys before they became popular."

Randall Gellens received a message from a telemarketer who seemed to confess what his true intentions were.

Don't know if it's my imagination but are drivers more reckless near donut shops? Could it be from inhaling all that sugar? Here are three cases I've collected, the Donut Hole of La Mirada (extensive chocolate damage), Angel Donuts of Long Beach (where someone misunderstood the drive-thru invitation) and Randy's Donuts of Inglewood (OK, that last one may be for a movie scene.)

Click any donut pic to make it bigger.

Ken Harrison suspects no one's going thirsty at one San Diego-area school.

Paula Van Gelder sent along a beer ad that read as though the writer was sampling the product.

In the Thin Blue Line police publication, officer John Lamberti lists some of his memorable experiences while on duty in Tinsel Town:

• "Going to pay the bill for my breakfast, only to find that the tab had been covered by one of the biggest rock stars of all time."
• "Discovering that...people like to run around naked on Sunset Boulevard at all hours of the day and night."
• "Trying to figure out who's supposed to strip search (an) arrestee who was born a female, got a sex-change operation, but was currently in the process of transitioning back to female, and listed as a male on the rap sheet but a female on the driver's license."

Bruce Leiserowitz, meanwhile, observed that the price of white corn was changing every few feet in one market.

It's that time of the year for funny school marquees.

Barbara Joan Grubman of Woodland Hills saw a hand-written sign in a ladies room that asked users not to throw "famine" napkins in the toilet.

If you are in the habit of putting your foot in your mouth — an occasional problem of mine — Bruce Welmers suggested a place where you could get help.

Looks like one book store was encouraging folks to buy a trashy novel for Pop.

Steve Harvey may be reached at steveharvey9@gmail.com. His Twitter handle is @sharvey9.

They didn't used to.

As Silicon Beach, with a robust tourism industry and ludicrously high property values, Santa Monica is attractive to people with money and the criminals drawn to them like rats to refuse. But most crime here is committed against property, not people. FBI figures from 2011, the most recent complete year for which data are available, reveal that 369 violent crimes were committed in the city versus 2,971 property crimes. According to the local police department, there were two homicides in Santa Monica in 2010, three in 2011 and one last year. Only one of those involved a gun, and that was an officer-involved shooting.

Last week, another shocking story broke simultaneously with the Santa Monica College shootings. It affected everyone in the U.S., and, unlike in Santa Monica, its violence was figurative. News that Americans' communications behavior is daily fare for government and government-adjacent snoops rendered the assault on our privacy no longer speculative, but concrete. As the "Daily Show" snarked, "Good News! You're Not Paranoid."

What strikes me about these parallel stories is their stark depiction of a constitutionally bipolar America.

Despite a history of psychological difficulty sufficient to get himself tossed into a psyche ward, the man authorities and all sentient people say is responsible for the six deaths in Santa Monica (including his own) managed to accumulate an arsenal of weapons the police chief said could shoot 1,300 rounds.

Despite the disturbing regularity of these lethal "can't happen here" rampages, Congress remains loath to enact meaningful gun restrictions because keeping Americans safe from these madmen imposes an unacceptable cost to the Second Amendment. See, it's a constitutional thing.

Now we know that the National Security Agency is secretly looking at everyone's communications and Internet activity, and that the judicial branch of the federal government secretly enables its desire to do so. We also know, courtesy the Washington Post/Pew Research Center, that 62 percent of us are just fine with that. We believe that investigating one terrorist threat that requires scrutiny of millions of people tweeting how cute the Starbucks barista is imposes an acceptable cost to the Fourth Amendment. See, it's not a constitutional thing.

No one said your thoughts have to be lofty, but they are yours to share as you wish. Complacency over mass surveillance of your net surfing interests and of whom you choose to talk to sacrifices the foundational presumption of innocence. Why do we believe that assault to our legal system is less a threat to our security than maniacs mowing down people with semiautomatic rifles?

Congress isn't worried about the NRA calling its shots (an apt metaphor if ever there was). We citizens aren't worried about who's guarding the guards.

Why don't we see how small a step it is from mass surveillance to a Watergate-like grab for personal information that has as much to do with a phone call from Yemen as it does with a government wonk acting out? If you're among the folks who believe there's nothing wrong with being monitored if you have nothing to hide, you embrace a naive assumption that you're secure. You fail to understand that the abuse of power thrives where power remains secret and without oversight.

So as I watch my little city grapple with the fallout of being a mass-shooting dateline, as I watch how we react to widespread official invasions of privacy, I worry not that appreciation of the Constitution is selective, but that we're making the wrong choices.

If we don't control the guns, we pay only lip service to our desire to be safe and secure. If we don't control the spies, the only thing left out in the cold will be our principles.

The Grammy Museum bills Ringo: Peace and Love, which opens Wednesday, as the first major exhibit dedicated to the former Beatle's career and the first ever for a drummer. The exhibit runs through March 2014. The Grammy Museum also currently has exhibits on the life of the late Jenni Rivera and the Beach Boys.