BATON ROUGE, La. — “Tommy Tanks” White had an eye-opening experience the first time he surveyed his new home baseball field in Baton Rouge.

“I didn’t think college baseball fields had stands in left field and right field,” White said at LSU’s preseason media day Friday inside his new ballpark.

The Tigers’ Alex Box Stadium, Skip Bertman Field does indeed have stands in left field and right field, which is necessary to accommodate the 10,000-plus fans that routinely come out to watch one of the most successful college baseball programs.

White, who set an NCAA freshman record for home runs with 27 last season before transferring from NC State, figures to deposit a bunch of souvenirs in those stands this season.

He will play inside Alex Box for the first time when the No. 1-ranked Tigers open the season Feb. 17 against Western Michigan in the first game of a 3-game series.

He’ll play in other impressive stadiums throughout the SEC during the regular season in anticipation of playing in TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Neb., for the College World Series in June.

But first things first.

LSU was never really on White’s radar either when he came out of IMG Academy in Florida or when he entered the transfer portal after the Wolfpack failed to reach to NCAA Tournament last season.

But White was on Tigers’ coach Jay Johnson’s radar after Johnson’s first Tigers team finished 4th in the SEC and lost in the Hattiesburg Regional of the NCAA Tournament last season.

A trip to the NCAA Tournament is considered a given at LSU, which expects to host a regional and Super Regional virtually every season while reaching the College World Series with regularity.

But the Tigers haven’t been to Omaha since 2017 and Johnson saw the opportunity to land White as a key to getting back in 2023. So the coach visited White at his home in St. Pete Beach, Fla., convinced him to take a visit to Baton Rouge and won him over pretty quickly last summer.

“I really liked everything about him and about the program,” White said. “I took the visit here, fell in love with the campus, everything about it.”

White committed to the Tigers during breakfast with Johnson on the second day of his visit to Baton Rouge, canceling a scheduled visit to Tennessee the following weekend.

Though he wasn’t expecting to wind up at LSU, White said he “knew the history about this place” before arriving.

Not many programs in America can match LSU’s history. The Tigers have won the College World Series 6 times. Only 2 other programs can claim that. They annually lead the nation in attendance. They’ve produced Golden Spikes Award winners and No. 1 overall picks. Tigers stars Aaron Nola and Alex Bregman just squared off in the World Series, which Bregman collecting his 2nd championship ring.

White joined the Tigers to help add to that legacy.

White’s arrival is one of the reasons that LSU is a consensus preseason No. 1 pick. Another reason is the return of All-America outfielder Dylan Crews, the projected No. 1 pick in the MLB Draft. Yet another is a solid core of returning players besides Crews and a highly regarded group of newcomers, which includes proven transfers besides White and a highly-touted freshman class.

The Tigers are loaded and White’s presence at third base and in the middle of the batting order is one of the causes of the sky-high expectations.

“The potential is there,” White said. “We’ve just got to do what we’ve always done since we were 3 or 4 years old.”

White, the ACC Freshman of the Year last season, has 2 years of eligibility remaining.

He burst onto the scene last season by hitting 3 home runs in his first game with the Wolfpack and finishing the season-opening series against Evansville with 5. He totaled 9 in the first 9 games. He finished with 27 — a figure that would tie for 6th on LSU’s single-season list. Only 2 Tigers have hit 30 homers in a season — Brad Cresse (30 in 2000) and Brandon Larson (program-record 40 in 1997).

White went on to be named ACC Freshman of the Year and was the most coveted player to enter the transfer portal after last season.

He finished the season with a .362 batting average with 12 doubles, 74 RBI and a .757 slugging percentage in addition to his NCAA freshman record and N.C. State school record for homers in a season.

Now he has a new home and an opportunity to set more records and not only play in the NCAA Tournament but also compete for the SEC Championship and potentially play in the College World Series.

Tommy White cover photo courtesy of LSU Athletics.