"The beauty of college baseball"

[Tskware]

I liked this quote (I will paraphrase) from the UT ND telecast yesterday

One of the beautiful things about college baseball is its imperfection. These kids are not professionals (many are only on partial scholarship), they make a lot of mistakes. And that is one thing that makes the sport so fun.

I will add that the pitching is not great, and there are more errors than you see even in AA ball, so almost no lead is completely safe, even in the late innings. Plus it is wildly unpredictable. The no. 1 overall seed has not won the title this century, and as often as not, has not even made it to Omaha. Contrast that to college football, where the top teams have so much talent they could probably hang with a really bad NFL team for a half, and the same 4 or 5 teams are in the BCS playoffs annually. Basketball is less predictable, but still you have a lot of usual suspects seeded 1 or 2 in a region every year, e.g., Kansas, UK, Duke, UNC, et al.

 

[Comebakatz3]

I liked this quote (I will paraphrase) from the UT ND telecast yesterday

One of the beautiful things about college baseball is its imperfection. These kids are not professionals (many are only on partial scholarship), they make a lot of mistakes. And that is one thing that makes the sport so fun.

I will add that the pitching is not great, and there are more errors than you see even in AA ball, so almost no lead is completely safe, even in the late innings. Plus it is wildly unpredictable. The no. 1 overall seed has not won the title this century, and as often as not, has not even made it to Omaha. Contrast that to college football, where the top teams have so much talent they could probably hang with a really bad NFL team for a half, and the same 4 or 5 teams are in the BCS playoffs annually. Basketball is less predictable, but still you have a lot of usual suspects seeded 1 or 2 in a region every year, e.g., Kansas, UK, Duke, UNC, et al.

A beautiful thing about this sport is that there is a massive amount of parity. Sure, you see some of the same names year in and year out, but new names also pop up all the time. UConn this year, for instance. UConn hasn't been to the CWS since 1979 and haven't won a regional since 2011. So, they certainly aren't regular visitors, even though they've made the NCAA tournament several times recently.

Then you see small schools all the time. Dallas Baptist, Southern Miss, Coastal Carolina... on and on. It is outstanding to see those schools compete at high levels and not just see the regular ones.

You also have schools like Arkansas that are absolute powerhouses... that have never won an national title. Miss. State was another one up until a year ago that had never won one. These teams draw 10,000+ fans a game and yet have 1 title between them.

This is all a testament to the fact that great players can come from anywhere and slip through the cracks all the time.

 

[mrschwump]

A beautiful thing about this sport is that there is a massive amount of parity. Sure, you see some of the same names year in and year out, but new names also pop up all the time. UConn this year, for instance. UConn hasn't been to the CWS since 1979 and haven't won a regional since 2011. So, they certainly aren't regular visitors, even though they've made the NCAA tournament several times recently.

Then you see small schools all the time. Dallas Baptist, Southern Miss, Coastal Carolina... on and on. It is outstanding to see those schools compete at high levels and not just see the regular ones.

You also have schools like Arkansas that are absolute powerhouses... that have never won an national title. Miss. State was another one up until a year ago that had never won one. These teams draw 10,000+ fans a game and yet have 1 title between them.

This is all a testament to the fact that great players can come from anywhere and slip through the cracks all the time.

True that. I think back to what Tim Corbin said after last year's 1st Round of MLB draft: "There were five players taken in Round One from non-P5 schools who had never been drafted before." As a longtime follower of college baseball I can tell you EVERBODY has good players, just some schools more than others.

 

[Tskware]

Plus any good team can beat any other good team 2 out of 3 in baseball, happens at every level

 

[Big_Blue_1018]

My old coach said one day that baseball is unique in the fact that although there can be a talent gap, everyone is on a level playing field. Every pitch brings an unknown.