re: Am I the only one that thinks college baseball ain't what it was!!

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Coastal Carolina seemed to be Mashing last year, looked like Skip's bunch out there.

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Yeah. They were fun to watch. I was raised on guerilla ball and this small ball shite in omaha is sad.

Well, I guess we don't pitch or play D too well, because we haven't been to Omaha often lately...

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Well, I guess we don't pitch or play D too well, because we haven't been to Omaha often lately...

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If you've waited since October to make that your first post, I can't wait to read your second post!

We are two games out of first... can we play the last half of the schedule? Damn

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CPM saw UCLA win 2 NC's

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UCLA has only one NC since Mainieri has been at LSU.

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no he's not.

Baseball, by its very nature, is a slow game, usually with little real action. A whole lot (a WHOLE LOT) of standing around where nothing happens.

So I fully admit I'm not a baseball fan. But even I loved watching college baseball 10 years ago when there was much more offense. No lead was safe. And that was fun and made the game more dramatic. So college baseball brought me in.....and then shut me out when they changed the bats and balls.

Now I don't want it to get ridiculous, and I'm not advocating for average scores of 20-18. But a 10-8 game is a hell of a lot more exciting that a 2-1 game. That's a yawner. "Pitchers' duel?" That just means nothing happens. An entire season of pitchers' duels will drive away all but the hardest-of-the-hardcore fans.

The game itself is dying a slow death, as youth participation is way down and the demographics of TV viewers (at least for MLB) skews largely to older folks. When they die off, there won't be many young folks to take their place.

But even I have to admit that I could watch the college game years ago with the different bats and balls. But now -- it's really hard to watch.

And no, I'm not alone.

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I agree with all of this. People are not being objective if they do not see what's happening to baseball. College baseball is not the minor leagues. Bring back the home run!

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Skip has been saying the past few yrs that the ball & the bats are ok now but what makes Omaha so difficult is the stadium is built such that the winds are always blowing in towards home plate that time of the year. And CPM saw UCLA win 2 NC's going small ball with average size players. He knows who & what he is recruiting and why.

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There is a relatively easy fix to that problem, but the Omaha folks wouldn't like that because it would obscure the view of downtown from the park.

Arlington Stadium, home of the Texas Rangers from 1972-1993, had this same problem when it opened--the prevailing southerly wind blew in from right, or right center-field, and made the place a graveyard for power hitters. That is, until they installed a new wrap around scoreboard, probably 50 feet high, around the top of the outfield bleachers (which were somewhat reminiscent of the bleachers at Omaha). Once they did this, the wind went up and over the scoreboard, then bounced off the upper deck behind home plate and created a backwash, that actually worked like a jet stream and turned Arlington Stadium into a hitter's park overnight. The current Rangers ballpark maintains the same dynamic (home plate faces the same direction, and the wind, although blowing in, creates a backwash that helps the ball travel.

So, they could do something similar in Omaha to increase home runs, but it would ruin the aesthetic they were shooting for. Still, I think the NCAA needs to find a way to get this done. There aren't many college baseball fans longing for a return to gorilla ball, but most fans wouldn't object to some adjustments at Omaha to give hitters a fair chance.

Or, just move the fences in.