Through all the games, from Little League to college ball, Steve Wagner wanted his twin sons, Geoffrey and Mychal, to do just one thing.

“Well, he always wanted us to compete, and he had us doing that from an early age,” says Redmond’s Geoff Wagner, who lost his father last month to complications from a brain tumor. “We always tried to do that to the best. I felt like he really liked that. We were probably too excessive at some times, but that’s the biggest thing we wanted to do and the best thing to please dad — ‘Let’s compete, let’s try to win’ — and he loved it, and it was fun.”

Growing up in Central Oregon with his dad coaching his youth travel teams, Geoff, now 30, matured as a left-handed power hitter and went on to star at Redmond and Bend high schools.

He earned a spot on the Oregon State University baseball team in 2005 and 2006, winning a national championship with the Beavers in his senior year. Wagner traveled to Omaha, Neb., to the College World Series in both of his years at Oregon State, and he sees some striking similarities between those teams and the 2013 OSU squad, which opened play in the eight-team CWS on Saturday.

“We didn’t have any negative energy, and these guys don’t have it,” Wagner says. “They’ve followed the same formula that we used. Everything has to click, and everybody has to buy in, and they have that this year.”

A 2001 graduate of Bend High School, Wagner played small-college baseball before joining the Beavers in 2005 as a reserve outfielder.

That team, led by All-America outfielder Jacoby Ellsbury, of Madras — now star center fielder for the Boston Red Sox — lost its first two games in Omaha and was eliminated.

But OSU returned to the CWS in 2006 to win the first of its two straight national titles. Wagner batted .242 in 35 games that season with four doubles and one home run. He batted just one time on that Omaha trip, as a pinch hitter, but he relishes the memories of being a part of that title team.

“It was just an unbelievable time,” he says.

Wagner, who played four summers with the Bend Elks during college, went on to play independent-league baseball for a few years on teams in Utah and Louisiana.

“And then I finished in … I can’t even remember the place it was so horrible,” Wagner says. “I was 1-for-20 (batting). It was no good.”

He knew then it was time to hang up his cleats, and in 2010 he settled back in Redmond with his wife, Cassaundra, with whom he has a 4-year-old daughter, Brookyln, and a 3-year-old son, Houstyn.

Wagner does abatement work at schools during the summer — he was working at a middle school in Lakeview this past week — and stays home with the kids the rest of the year. Cassaundra is a fifth-grade teacher at Culver Elementary School.

This spring, Wagner was a volunteer coach for the Ridgeview High School baseball team in Redmond, and he remains an avid OSU fan, having attended a few Beaver games this season in Corvallis. He even plans to make the trip to Omaha should Oregon State reach the best-of-three championship series next week.

Wagner calls the 2013 team “eerily similar” to the 2006 national title team.

“They’ve got the mojo, you know?” Wagner says. “They play really well together. (Player) one to 25, same mentality, everybody is locked in. Plus, it helps to have an unbelievable pitching staff, just like when we went.”

Wagner says he still keeps in touch with Darwin Barney, the Beavers’ shortstop on both national title teams and now the starting second baseman for the Chicago Cubs.

Former OSU outfielder Tyler Graham, with whom Wagner still communicates frequently, played briefly in the big leagues last season for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Graham was on the 2006 Oregon State national championship team.

“There’s other guys who are still in Triple A (minors),” Wagner says. “It’s good to see people do really well.”

And Wagner himself apparently has not counted out a return to the diamond. The Lasik eye surgery he underwent last year could help his batting.

“I’m debating a potential comeback,” Wagner says, perhaps half-joking. “I’ve got the new eyes. Maybe I can hit a curveball now, because I could see the damn thing.”

His father, no doubt, would be proud. In fact, to memorialize his dad and his involvement in youth baseball, Geoff is hoping to raise funds to get an indoor hitting facility for young ballplayers built in Redmond in his father’s name. He projects the cost at $40,000.

Some folks who remember Steve Wagner, who was 58 when he died, and remember his dedication to coaching and supporting youngsters even gave donations to Geoff at his father’s memorial service earlier this month.

Steve, who lived with a brain tumor for more than nine years, still managed to attend nearly every home game that Geoff played at Oregon State, and many of the road games. He made the trips to Omaha in 2005 and 2006.

“He was at every game, he was always around, and he just loved baseball,” Geoff says of his dad. “He’s got money he left each of us. I’m going to make sure that (the hitting facility) happens.”