Road to Omaha thread

[Jake_Taylor]

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.

 

[albert77]

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.

 

[Hokie_pokie]

Anybody who showed they can really play is already a pro. They showed their stuff early and took their seven-fig bonus. The CWS is full of either late bloomers, or kids who made a bad decision signing D-I, or kids just glad to get a partial ride through college.

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.

 

[Jake_Taylor]

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.

 

[Mark2010]

Yeah, even back in the 1990s when I was a baseball SID at a pretty good program, things had started to change. Playing NCAA ball for 2-3 years now is probably a better gig than the low level minor leagues.

 

[HejiraHenry]

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.

So many ways that can go haywire. Lafayette really pounds the ball and Mississippi State just ain't the same team they were a year ago. I think that's the first obstacle to what would be an epic rematch.

 

[Paynendearse]

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.

]
So is it fair to say that Maryland baseball has sucked the settled water of the lowest of basemen floors for four decades?

 

[jr/shotglass]

It's pretty sad, but college baseball in the Northeast, at least down to the Virginias, has about the same broad appeal as college lacrosse does in Idaho.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

The trouble with college baseball up this way is twofold. One, the problem with all college sports here, too many colleges. The fan pie is divvied into teeny tiny pieces. Two, and much more serious, it's no fun to watch (or play) baseball games here in April and most of May. It's 47 and drizzling outside my house right now and they've already drawn for the College World Series.

 

[jr/shotglass]

Yes, March is a miserable month for college baseball in the Northeast. They've got to get the games in, and it seems like they're all played at 40 degrees.

 

[Cosmo]

That's a big reason why the NCAA has tried to put regionals in non-traditional spots (like UConn and Michigan in recent years), in hopes of drumming up interest outside of the traditional hotbeds. They tried everything they could to give Washington a regional but it would have been too tough to justify from an RPI standpoint. First time since '04 that there's only been two regionals west of the Rockies.

 

[HanSenSE]

That's a big reason why the NCAA has tried to put regionals in non-traditional spots (like UConn and Michigan in recent years), in hopes of drumming up interest outside of the traditional hotbeds. They tried everything they could to give Washington a regional but it would have been too tough to justify from an RPI standpoint. First time since '04 that there's only been two regionals west of the Rockies.

See also: MLB holding opening day in Tokyo and Australia. I wonder why the NCAA doesn't embrace the game's strength in the SEC, Pac-12, Big West, ect., instead of propping up the weak spots?

 

[CHETtheJET]

Go Lions! Ivy league as a THREE seed. Baby!

 

[Mark2010]

The trouble with college baseball up this way is twofold. One, the problem with all college sports here, too many colleges. The fan pie is divvied into teeny tiny pieces. Two, and much more serious, it's no fun to watch (or play) baseball games here in April and most of May. It's 47 and drizzling outside my house right now and they've already drawn for the College World Series.

Very true. I worked as a SID at a smaller school in the south. Our season would start before the Super Bowl (hated that) and we'd have a month or more of basketball/baseball overlap, which sucked.

Our biggest tournaments came in February and early March when we'd get a bunch of northeast and Midwest teams to come in and play. Unfortunately, by April we had played 3/4 of our games allotment, so after working 60-70-hour weeks for a couple of months, I'd sit in the office on a Tuesday afternoon and think "Gee, this would be a nice day to sit out at the ballpark and watch a game."

It's a real issue for the northern schools and I'm sure it probably hurts recruiting as well. Not sure if there's a satisfactory answer.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

New England's most nationally competitive baseball schools are in Division III, where kids go either to stay local or for reasons other than sports.

 

[Jake_Taylor]

It's interesting that there hasn't been one or two schools emerge as the popular teams in New England. Boston College is really the only one with a major football program, it's kind of surprising people who went to Northeastern or whatever don't identify as a fan of a bigger school too. In Virginia, for instance, it seems like most of the people who go to JMU or Norfolk State or wherever pick a side in the UVa-VT battle. Is it different in New England because there are real rivalries in hockey among all the schools?

College baseball in New York isn't terrible. There are no powerhouses, but St. John's has had its moments. Stony Brook made the CWS a couple years ago and, as somebody mentioned, even Columbia got in as a 3 seed from the Ivy this year.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

Jake, that's just it. The hockey rivalries trump all for the bigger schools. My kids are BU grads, and they wouldn't root for BC football (or anything else) if the team made it to the national championship game.

 

[Armchair_QB]

It's interesting that there hasn't been one or two schools emerge as the popular teams in New England. Boston College is really the only one with a major football program, it's kind of surprising people who went to Northeastern or whatever don't identify as a fan of a bigger school too. In Virginia, for instance, it seems like most of the people who go to JMU or Norfolk State or wherever pick a side in the UVa-VT battle. Is it different in New England because there are real rivalries in hockey among all the schools?

College baseball in New York isn't terrible. There are no powerhouses, but St. John's has had its moments. Stony Brook made the CWS a couple years ago and, as somebody mentioned, even Columbia got in as a 3 seed from the Ivy this year.

Maine was an Eastern power for years back in the 70s and 80s and was a semi-regular in Omaha when the regionals were truly "regional".

Of course they were later found to be cheating their asses off.

 

[Batman]

The trouble with college baseball up this way is twofold. One, the problem with all college sports here, too many colleges. The fan pie is divvied into teeny tiny pieces. Two, and much more serious, it's no fun to watch (or play) baseball games here in April and most of May. It's 47 and drizzling outside my house right now and they've already drawn for the College World Series.

Very true. I worked as a SID at a smaller school in the south. Our season would start before the Super Bowl (hated that) and we'd have a month or more of basketball/baseball overlap, which sucked.

Our local JUCO has a pretty good baseball program, and for a few years they hosted a six- or eight-team tournament over spring break. One of the regulars was a team from Illinois that couldn't get on its home field until mid-April. So, they traveled down south and played teams in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana for the first month of the season. After the local JUCO's tournament, they spent a few more days traversing the state and playing two or three doubleheaders to get their money's worth. They probably played a dozen games in 10 days.

 

[Batman]

Turned on the ESPN Bases Loaded channel to see some of the whip-around regional coverage, and I have a feeling already that it's going to be a long weekend.
A guy for Southeastern Louisiana hit a solo home run in the top of the first inning against LSU. The host immediately started wondering aloud how much second-guessing there would be if LSU lost because they threw a freshman (Jared Poche, who's 9-3 with a 2.21 ERA) instead of the ace Aaron Nola.
IN THE TOP OF THE FIRST INNING!
Ay caramba.

There's also the glut of college baseball uniforms inspired by the 1970s Astros, but that's another issue. Why does nearly every team have these things now?