Road to Omaha thread

It would be nice to have at least one host in the Midwest somewhere. If that were the case in the basketball tournaments, there would be an outcry. I get that Big Ten teams don't draw as well as SEC teams, but out of 16 spots, surely they could find ONE.

Edit: I saw Bloomington, Ind., was hosting a region. Good move.

 

Not in the same conference anymore. So it's almost a no-brainer to put them together.

 

Oh, they'll pack 'em in. They would often draw as many fans for baseball games as they would for men's basketball (especially when the teams weren't real good). They might draw more fans than a typical Astros game. Playing in Houston, with tons of alums from both schools, it will be a tough ticket.

 

That's 15 out of 56 combined NL and AL MVP and Cy Youngs between 2000-13.

That's not most.

 

If you take out the non-Americans, it probably is. And several of those guys won multiple awards.

Ryan Howard also played college baseball, though he wasn't listed. Same with Roger Clemens.

And though he's not American, you can add Albert Pujols to that list. He played junior college baseball in the U.S.

 

Bonds won 4 MVPs. So add 3, that's 18. Clemens, who I forgot played at Texas, won 2 Cy Youngs. So that's 20. Randy Johnson has 3 Cy Youngs, so add 2, that's 22. Lincicum has two Cy Youngs, so add 1, that's 24. Verlander also won an MVP, so add 1. That's 25. Howard, who I forgot played at SWMS, so add 1. That's 26.

From 56, lets subtract Pujols (3) Cabrera (2), Santana (2), Colon, Hernandez, P. Martinez, Vlad Guerrero, Miguel Tejada, Ichiro, Gagne, Morneau and Votto, who were all born outside of the US. That 16, so 40.

26 of 40 is 65 percent, or nearly 2/3. Ie, most.

 

Too bad Rice can't move that regional to Minute Maid.

 

Spent a couple of days wondering what would happen with the Big West.
-- Cal Poly SLO finished first.
-- Long Beach finished strong and was second.
-- UC Irvine had a lock on the championship, then lost its last eight conference games to finish third, losing 2 of 3 to Cal Poly, and being swept by CS Fullerton and Long Beach.
-- CS Fullerton, preseason No. 1 by Baseball America, was crap most of the year then came on strong at the end, still finished fourth.
Of the 2-3-4, Fullerton is probably the best team, Irvine had the best record, but Long Beach actually finished second.
So the NCAA took all of them. Kinda surprising, except the Big West commissioner was the head of the selection committee.

 

The last time Maryland was in the tournament:

Richard Nixon was president and the Watergate break-in wouldn’t happen for another 13 months.

Lefty Driesell was in his second season as Terps men’s basketball coach.

Robert Griffin Jr. was 8 years old.

The local NBA team was the Baltimore Bullets and was two years away from moving to Washington and 26 from being renamed the Wizards.

The Washington Capitals didn’t exist, entering the NHL three years later.

The Washington Senators were playing their final season at RFK Stadium before leaving town to become the Texas Rangers.

 

Interesting potential matchup in the super regionals would be if Ole Miss wins its regional and Mississippi State wins the Lafayette regional, they'd meet in the supers at Oxford. U La La may have something to say about that, and the Confederates have a reputation for coming up small in June, so there's a long way to go before that happens. Still, it's an intriguing prospect.

 

Astoundingly absurd generalization.

Virginia's ace, soph lefty Nathan Kirby, was throwing in the 90s with a plus-curve as a HS junior. No fewer than 15 pro scouts attended each of his starts during his senior year. He was expected to be selected in the first 3-5 rounds of the 2012 draft, but removed his name from consideration because he wanted to go to college more than he needed a big signing bonus.

Over the past 20 years, I've seen and heard of dozens of similar stories -- kids who could've opted for the big bucks out of HS but decided to go to college instead.

If anything, the math has shown that HS pitchers who go straight to the pros are far more likely to break down physically or simply fail to live up to expectations -- which makes sense, when you consider that in a typical HS lineup, there are maybe 1-2 guys who can even hope to touch a 94 mph heater.

Not terribly difficult for a HS kid with a power arm to look more dominant than he really is.

 

There was a discussion the other day about the story on the poor minor league lifestyle. If you aren't getting offered a life-changing signing bonus it's pretty easy to understand why some guys would rather spend a few years in Gainesville or Chapel Hill rather than Pulaski or Hagerstown.