College Baseball 2007

Reprinted from Collegebaseballinsider.com.
Feb. 15

Up All Night

By Ritch Price

Kansas Head Coach



Editor's Note: Kansas and South Dakota State faced bad weather in Lawrence, Kan., over the weekend. Cancel the series? Not a chance. The Jayhawks and Jackrabbits rented out the Metrodome and played through the night - rather morning - on Saturday and Sunday to get the games in. CBI asked KU coach Ritch Price to share some thoughts...



Our starting pitcher, Andy Marks, may have made the greatest 4:30 a.m. start in the history of college baseball. He held South Dakota State to just one run on four hits... he was absolutely special...

rest of the story.

What an awesome story to kick off this year's college baseball season.

For those of you who aren't familiar with college baseball, I'm sorry. You're missing out on baseball's secret little pearl. At the major college level (Division I), there are about 260+ teams battling for 64 NCAA tournament spots, which are then divided into 16 regionals, which are then paired down to a "Sweet 16" if you will, who then battle to play in the greatest event in amateur athletics, the College World Series.

A little background on the sport:
There are some low-quality Division I programs that are seriously short on talent. They are like the 16-seeds in the NCAA tournament for basketball - often times playing at a lower class than their counterparts, even though technically they are still classified as "Division I". However, for the remaining 150 or so schools (all of the BCS conference schools, with additions of Big West, MVC, Big South, Southland, WCC, to some extent the Mountain West, and some indys) the level of play is around the "High Class A" level - teams are well coached, fundamental, and play hard-nosed team-oriented baseball. Raw talent level is sometimes slightly below an average minor league team, but you won't see a minor league team come close to a good Div. I college team when it comes to team-baseball, competitive nature, and spirit. Good Div. I college teams will ususally produce 1-3 major leaguers before they are said and done, which is about on par with a Class "A" affiliate. In a four-year span at a good college program, I've had the honor of playing with 19 professional baseball players and probably 4 who will end up having major league careers.

The funny thing about college baseball is the vast disparity in its popularity according to geography. At SEC, ACC, Big South, Big West, and some Southland Con. schools, baseball is often times viewed as the biggest sport behind football and basketball, and at many of these schools, ahead of basketball. In the north, schools in the Big Ten, MAC, A-10, Big East and others often times struggle to even gain major notoriety from their own universities, let alone make much revenue/attendance wise. Where the disparity between the two regions arises, interestingly enough, has little or nothing to do with the quality of play or talent level, but instead the time of the year that the sport is on the calendar.

A large chasm between the way southern schools are treated and the way northern schools are treated has developed ever since the sport became much more regimented in the late 70s - early 80s. When "regional" tournament bids no longer held any geographical connection, southern schools began to earn more and more bids to the NCAA tournament based on better winning percentages. These percentages are directly tied to the ability to play much more home games than a northern school can play, and also the fact that a southern school can start it's season whenever it wants to after Jan. 1st. A northern school must travel in order to play at any time before mid-March because of weather.

This has lead to two distinct injustices: One, southern schools are allowed to inflate winning percentages by playing more home games, and then in turn playing each other later in the season (often 'conference season' games), which is a good way to inflate their "strength of schedule" and have a disproportionally strong impact on the "objective" statistical measurement of the quality of an NCAA team, its Ratings Percentage Index (RPI). This index is used to justify the selection of NCAA baseball tournament teams, and often times seen on ESPN when they are showing a "resume" for an NCAA basketball team. (basketball has a similar RPI index, except in basketball it is much much harder to say that the number is skewed). The second injustice, which has perplexed many for a while, is that NCAA baseball is the only NCAA sport without a uniform starting date. This is equivalent to MLB teams just starting their seasons whenever they want. With a clear competitive advantage to be had by starting earlier, southern teams often take advantage of playing northern teams that are not only on the road, but usually playing for the first time outdoors all year.

Thus, records of good southern baseball teams often turn out to be 40-16, 35-21, etc.

The records of good northern baseball teams often end up being 34-22, 29-27..etc.

Then, for decades, selections for the NCAA tournament have included one representative from each conference, and 30+ "at large" bids that are awarded based upon record, conference record, and RPI-type statistics. With 2 of those 3 factors being clearly skewed in favor of southern schools, they have dominated the college baseball landscape for some time now.
Landing strong recruiting classes.
Getting undeserved NCAA bids.
In general, making northern schools hate them.

The time of change has begun, however. One of the two injustices, the non-uniform start date, has been altered and will take effect next season. Everyone has to start on March 1. Oregon St. (in the northern part of the country) is the defending national champion. Norte Dame, Ohio St., Michigan, and St. John's have began to establish themselves as NCAA tournament regulars, whether or not they win their conference.

But, in the end, the northern schools still hate the south. The southern schools don't like having their empire being taken apart slowly. There are 56 regular season games, 32 conference tournament titles, 16 regional titles, 8 College World Series spots, and one national champion. In baseball terms, its a drag race with some civil-war type hostility brought into it. NOT TO MENTION the various rivalries and amazing major-league lineages that so many of the schools bring to the table.

Oh, and did I mention there are still metal bats (although SERIOUSLY toned down from what they used to be - think restrictor-plate racing in NASCAR times 5)?

It's too bad college baseball isn't more popular - it's alot cooler than arena league football that's for sure. Maybe we can convince the NHL to go on another strike? One or two more years of major TV coverage of this sport, and there will be more to it than the college world series in the eyes of many. Heck, one day there might even be a video game (-;.