So I am less-than-patiently waiting for Friday night and the series against Vandy. No next day articles to read, no stats to absorb, no witty post-game banter on TF. Oh, the humanity! :sob:
Rabalais: Pundits in panic mode By SCOTT RABALAIS [email protected] Advocate sportswriter Every time an LSU baseball player steps to the plate at Alex Box Stadium, P.A. announcer Bill Franques queues up that Tiger's theme music and sends it pouring out over ballpark's speakers. Wonder if Blake Gill or Matt Liuzza or Nick Stavinoha or one of the boys ever thought to pick something by Widespread Panic? Sure would be appropriate. The LSU baseball cognoscenti hasn't just pushed the panic button over this season, over this program, they've mashed it through the dashboard. Why? Advertisement Click Here Because they think this season is a mess. Because they think this team has underachieved. Because it isn't 1993. I think LSU baseball fans once fancied that the Tigers were to Southeastern Conference baseball what Kentucky is to SEC men's basketball, a program dominant year after year, taking on all comers and eventually beating them back. Instead, LSU has come back to the pack, and some of the pack (South Carolina, Florida) has passed the Tigers by. Is the current state of LSU's baseball season acceptable? No. The Tigers are 26-13 overall and 7-8 in the SEC, tied for last in the Western Division. If the season ended today, the midway point of the conference schedule, LSU would be in a three-way scrap with Ole Miss and Vanderbilt for the last spot in the eight-team SEC Tournament. Whether your glass is half empty or half full, the Tigers are at a critical point in their season facing road trips to Arkansas this weekend and Vanderbilt the next. The Tigers simply can't afford the kind of swoon that saw them go 1-5 in back-to-back series against Alabama and South Carolina earlier this month. www.theadvocate.com
Okay, here's a baseball fix for you. Round Rock beat the Zephyrs last nite on a 9th inning 2 out wow (walk off walk). Zeph's reliever Chad Durbin (isn't he from BR ?) gave up a one out triple, 2 intentional walks to load 'em, struck out next hitter, then issued the winning walk on 4 pitches. Sorry, that's all I have. :wink:
Aaron Hill cracked a two-out homer in the bottom of the ninth to give the Syracuse SkyChiefs a wild 10-9 victory over Brian Tallet's Buffalo Herd.
Maybe that will be enough to make me stop tearing up my office looking for the peeps I stashed after Easter. (Emergency Peeps.) I even went to the Tulane site to see how they did last night!
College baseball needs change-up Sport would improve with wood bats, a later season start date and beer Gilbert Quiñonez Click Here for more articles by Gilbert Quiñonez By Gilbert Quiñonez DAILY BRUIN SENIOR STAFF [email protected] At the professional level, baseball, football and basketball have clearly established themselves as the top sports in the country. Yet at the college level, only football and basketball are the mainstream sports, with baseball lagging behind. Way behind. While college football and basketball draw large crowds and impressive TV ratings, college baseball is just that sport that is occasionally shown on ESPN to fill airtime. And how many fans really care that Cal State Fullerton won last year's College World Series? Or even know, for that matter? It doesn't have to be this way, though. With a couple of changes, college baseball's popularity can increase. This country loves its baseball. Major league attendance hit an all-time high in 2004 and will likely be even higher this season. But college baseball is often just an afterthought. Two changes will boost the sport's prestige. First, eliminate the aluminum bats. Second, push the season start date back to coincide with the pro season. Aluminum bats are a detriment to the sport. It's much easier to get a hit and score with aluminum as opposed to wood, making college baseball scores much higher than its professional counterpart. "Wooden bats give the game more credibility," former long-time UCLA baseball coach Gary Adams said. "For old-timers like me, the crack of the bat sounds better than the ping of the bat. A lot of old-timers are turned off by metal bats. They played with wood." My earliest college baseball memory is USC beating Arizona State 21-14 in the last game of the 1998 College World Series – a game in which neither team could ever get the other one out. And it's these types of games that turn a lot of fans off. "When the College World Series comes around and I ask my friends if they watch it, they say, 'You mean all the games with the football scores?'" Adams said. Though wooden bats would help revive college baseball, there's another important step that needs to be taken. The college baseball season typically starts the last week of January. While that's not a problem in sunny Los Angeles or in any southern state, for most of the country, it's very harsh on fans. Believe it or not, it gets cold in January in most of the country. It even snows. By starting the season so early, the schools in a good portion of the country are at a disadvantage because of the weather – baseball is a warm-weather, outdoor sport. Take a look at the rankings. Not a single top 25 team is from the frigid Northeast. The only ranked schools in places that can be considered North are Oregon State and Nebraska. "Baseball was meant to be played in warmth," Adams said. "You like to feel the sun on you. Fans like to go to games in a shirt and shorts." Starting the college baseball season in March or April would give everyone an even playing field and eventually increase interest in other parts of the country. Also in April and the summer months, the sport of baseball itself receives more attention – you have to figure some of that would translate into the college game. Another way to draw fans to UCLA games in particular is to, well, sell beer at the games. (continued here: http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/articles.asp?id=33026 ) College baseball could be a lot more fun if given a chance. If only the people in the sport itself will give it a chance to grow.
And to me, those people are idiots. I go through baseball withdrawal after the season ends like most Tiger fans go through football withdrawal. Thanks for the articles. That should hold me off the peeps for a while!:grin:
thats how i feel. I do love football too, but baseball is the all-time greatest anyways i have a quote that ryan said after the sweep of arkansas and this is exactly how i feel...i kept going to games in the slump and e/t...never gave up...but anyways here it is.... "too many people get caught up in 'We need to win this game' or 'We need to win this series' or 'We need to do this or do that', but if we just keep trying to get better and play our game, all of that will take care of itself" -ryan patterson:tigbas: :geauxtige
I agree that wooden bats would be better but I don't think it would make that much difference in attendance. Moving the season back as far as they want to would actually hurt attendance since school would let out during the season and students are all that many of the colleges draw. I can see the point of moving the season back for the northern teams, but hope it doesn't happen. You also have to wonder how the season extending into the late or mid summer would effect the baseball students. They would in effect have to become year round students as they would be stuck at school.
