Should College Baseball move the season back?

[CochiseCowbell]

Didn't see this mentioned, sorry if Germanic.

Too cold for baseball?

Should the College Baseball season start later?

Two sides to the same coin:
(1. on both posts)

For
http://www.d1baseball.com/columns/ten-thoughts-friday-feb-22/
(date's wrong on the link, not sure why)

Against
http://www.d1baseball.com/columns/ten-thoughts-saturday-feb-21/

My grandfather used to say, "The coldest damn place on earth is Dudy Noble Field in February." And he was a B-24 ball turret gunner at 20,000+ feet where their oxygen masks would sometimes freeze.

 

[KurtRambis4]

I can

vouch for your grandpaw, on the DNF aspect. I would be out there for those Feb midweek games, at night, and it would be almost miserable.

 

[patdog]

I don't think you really can move the end of the season back much. The draft is a week before the CWS as it is now. Plus, as the argument against points out, it's COLLEGE baseball. Move the season back that much and the entire conference season will be after the students have left for the summer. What they need to do is move the start of the season back 2 weeks, eliminate the conference tournaments, and shorten the regular season by 1 week (keep it at 56 games though).

 

[Dogariffic]

Playing and watching in the cold are both bad ideas....really don't like either.
As for moving the schedule, I think Templeton scheduled these games planning on global warming.....moving them back is fine by me.

 

[57stratdawg]

Push it back two weeks. Start at the beginning of March and let the CWS end around the 4th of July.

 

[Ridgeland Dog]

What I do not like is tournament baseball for kids starting in mid February. It is ridiculous.

 

[512taylor]

Screw the draft!
It's too damn cold!!!

 

[philduckworth]

I don't think you really can move the end of the season back much. The draft is a week before the CWS as it is now. Plus, as the argument against points out, it's COLLEGE baseball. Move the season back that much and the entire conference season will be after the students have left for the summer. What they need to do is move the start of the season back 2 weeks, eliminate the conference tournaments, and shorten the regular season by 1 week (keep it at 56 games though).

I thought they moved back the draft. And u can't get rid of conf tournies. Too much fun.

 

[BulldogBlitz]

cut the number of games for that non-sport. that will help tons.

 

[patdog]

They moved the MLB draft back 4 days, to the following Monday. This year's draft starts June 8. And conference tournaments are meaningless.

 

[Go Budaw]

I could go either way on it. The primary factor driving the discussion is that the northern teams can't start as early and are put at a disadvantage schedule-wise. However, I don't think moving the season start back two weeks will help that much as the Midwest and the New England area are typically still very cold all the way into early April. So I don't know if there is any tangible benefit on a national scale that outweighs having to play about half the season while school is out of session. However, it would be nice to avoid all the early season weather issues for both the players and fans, especially when scheduled games can't be played due to travel issues.

 

[maroonmania]

Ron Polk is that you? I jokingly say that because, of course, Polk played very, very, few games in February and usually started playing 2 weeks later than everyone else. He didn't believe in Feb baseball, double headers, 7 inning games or other things that went against his baseball purism. The result of that was that we ended up playing significantly more mid-week games once conference season started. I like playing more games earlier so the team doesn't get worn down at the end of the year due to playing more games the last 2 months of the season than everyone else. To me its all about what keeps your team in the best shape for post-season.

 

[patdog]

Polk used to play plenty of 7-inning games, and not just the old SEC doubleheaders. Gene Morgan's no-hitter was a 7-inning game against Hawaii-Hilo. As much as I hate Polk, he's right that baseball shouldn't be played in February. But I'd never advocate starting 2 weeks later than everyone else. As for teams getting "worn down" playing 5 games a week, that's ridiculous. Polk would have pitchers with tired arms in May because he used to overwork them like crazy. The usual schedule was for his 2 Saturday starters to split a Wednesday game (5 innings for one and 4 for the other) then start a 7-inning game on Saturday, for the whole season. There's no reason to have weeks towards the end of the season with no midweek games. 4 days in a row off is too many.

 

[MagnoliaHunter]

EVERYTHING should be moved back two weeks

Starting with Football and bow season. Its way too damn hot to be playing football in August or beginning of September. And it's way too damn hot to be bow hunting the 1st of October.(Sorry got off on the wrong rant). It is definitely too cold in February to play baseball.

 

[GhostOfJackie]

The could save 2 days by having a 4 day SEC tournament instead of 6. It would be a 12 team single elimination tournament with the top 4 receiving a bye. The SEC tournament is way too long for my taste.

Push opening day back a week and make up those games before the SEC season starts. We should play 5-6 games every week pre-SEC season. Tuesday-Wed-Friday-Sat-Sat-Sun every week until SEC season.