Oral Roberts Baseball Players Rewarded With Gummy Worms For Reaching Base

The early bird gets the worm. And in this case, the early bird is an Oral Roberts Golden Eagle.

The ORU baseball team has an interesting rewards system that went viral during the team's Super Regional win over the Oregon Ducks. When a player successfully gets on base, first base coach Jimmy Turk feeds him a gummy worm.

More specifically, though, it's a Twin Snake — a Haribo candy similar to a gummy worm.

And while the tradition might just now be getting media attention, it actually started back in 2021.

On a long bus ride from Minneapolis to Fargo, now senior captain Jake McMurray led the team in a singalong to the viral TikTok "Sea Shanty" song. Eight hours later, while still on the bus, "everybody on the team wanted to be a pirate," McMurray said.

So Coach Turk decided they should all get a piece of treasure. In the form of a piece of candy.

"Yeah, I'm a little superstitious too," Turk told MLB.com's Matt Monagan. "If I forget to give a guy a Twin Snake, and he goes out in the field and we give up two runs, I'm like, 'Damn, that's on me.'"

So... pirates, Golden Eagles and gummy snake treasure?

Look, it doesn't have to make sense if it works. And in 2023, something does appear to be working for Oral Roberts.

The Golden Eagles beat Oregon in the Super Regionals to earn their first College World Series bid since 1978. And while they currently have the longest odds to win the tournament, their season has been nothing short of dominant.

They ran through the Summit League regular season with a 23-1 conference record. Then, they went 3-0 in the Summit League Conference Tournament to secure their spot in the NCAA Tournament.

(Credit: Chris Pietsch/The Register-Guard)

A major reason for ORU's success is its pitching staff. Their hurlers are tossing a combined 3.97 ERA — seventh in the United States.

But they're no slouches at plate, either. The 2023 Golden Eagles have racked up 721 hits with a team batting average over .300. Leading the charge is centerfielder Jonah Cox, who is riding a 47-game hit streak — third longest in Division I baseball history.

That's a whole lot of gummy worms.

Oral Roberts takes on TCU at 2 p.m. ET Friday in the first game of the College World Series.