re: What happened to Cal State Fullerton baseball?

I think youth baseball and travel ball outside of California also changed the landscape. You used to hear stories about California producing so much talent because they could and did play year round.

Even in the South, kids would only play on their local little league team for a couple of months.

Youth ball, travel ball, and even high school baseball is much bigger in ACC and SEC country than in was in the 80’s. Combine that with the facilities of bigger college programs, and the advantages of programs like Fullerton have disappeared.