If you’re a college baseball fan, then this is an exciting time of the year for you. The College World Series just got underway this weekend.
And if you’re a college baseball fan, then you might also be from the south.
It sounds like an old Jeff Foxworthy bit. You might be from the south, if you like college baseball.
But college sports have become very regional in many ways, with none more glaring than baseball.
It’s become a southern sport. There are 300 Division I baseball teams. They play in 31 different conferences. And yet, only two of those conferences (the ACC and SEC) are represented in this year’s College World Series.
But this isn’t very much out of the ordinary.
When Michigan was the runner-up in the 2019 College World Series, that was out of the ordinary. It was the program’s first appearance in the College World Series in 35 years and their first trip to the finals since JFK was president.
Only two Big Ten teams have made the College World Series since 1984 and the conference hasn’t won the title since Ohio State in 1966.
In the north, it’s still cold when college baseball begins in February. The northern teams have to start their season with a month on the road in the south.
Southern teams get to play more home games. They get to actually be outside for practice before the season begins. And early on too.
Northern teams, on the other hand, have to repurpose their basketball gyms and rec centers. It’s a distinct advantage for the southern teams (and California).
Why do you think spring training, held during the same time of the year, is always in Arizona and Florida?
The last team to win a College World Series from a cold climate was that aforementioned Ohio State team almost 60 years ago.
Every champion of the last five years is from the SEC (all different schools, too) and the SEC has accounted for nine of the last 12 teams to play in the championship.
And consider this. The schools which have won multiple championships since 1962 are USC, LSU, Texas, Arizona State, Arizona, Miami, Cal State Fullerton, Oregon State, South Carolina, Stanford and Vanderbilt.
That’s 11 programs, which is a lot. But they’re all from warm states. And this year’s participants? They’re all from the south: North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Florida, Florida State, Texas A&M, NC State and Kentucky.
A big reason why baseball hasn’t caught on nationally like other college sports – most notably football and basketball – is because it’s closed off to half of the country.
In fact, after leading Michigan to that 2019 CWS, their coach, Erik Bakich, left for the lead job at Clemson. A program that has never won it all and hasn’t even been to the CWS since 2010.
So why did he go? Because even he knew: You have to be in the south to win.