Is college baseball big in your burg?

[coxfan]

Here at the U of South Carolina, college baseball is big-time. We averaged over 7,000 fans per home game last year, which was 3rd in the US. Our fabulous stadium, which has a wrap-around concourse that allows one to see the game from every angle except right behind the batter's eye, seats 8,242 and is often sold out. Paul LoDuca, in commenting for an ESPN game here, said it was better than 90% of the minor-league stadiums he had seen.

But it seems like most college baseball teams have tiny turnouts, with attendances in the hundreds at best. That's surprising, since many MLB players starred in college: eg David Price, Tim Hudson, Buster Posey, Robin Ventura, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and hundreds of others going back to Lou Gehrig. (As late as the 1970's, even U of SC and UGA had only about 50 fans/game; UGA now is in the low thousands.)

So what's baseball like at your favorite college?

[coxfan]

By the way, I realized right after posting that I'd put this in the wrong forum. ( It was meant for "General Sports Discussion.")

[frikativ54]

"In your burg"??? Never heard that expression before; please explain.

[godwulf]

Both at Arizona State and the U of A, not only is college Baseball very big, but so is women's softball. Because of the weather here, both sports are played virtually year-round at some level, and tend to be quite popular at all levels.

[coxfan]

Probably should be "burgh" for "town"-as in Pittsburgh, etc. I guess it's an old expression not used much now; but it was once understood as a slang term for city or town.

[Rob L]

Here in Orange County, CA we have the Fullerton Titans and the Irvine Anteaters. Just outside of our border are the Long Beach Dirtbags, so yeah, it's pretty big around here.

[sparky39762]

I live in Starkville, MS - home of Mississippi State - and baseball is huge around here. Several publications in the past have dubbed Dudy Noble Field as the best place in the country to watch college baseball.

Grills in the Left Field Lounge (but really from LF corner to RC) going in the outfield means tons of food and drink for all - it's basically a smaller version of a football tailgate in the outfield.

My son (2.5 yrs old) will be throwing out a first pitch later in the year. He also threw one out last year. Really looking forward to that since he's really starting to get into baseball.

[coxfan]

I appreciate hearing from programs where fan support is strong. But I'm also curious about places where it's not. For example, UCONN made the Super-Regionals (the "sweet sixteen") played at South Carolina in 2011, and had two very high draft picks. But when I later spoke to two UCONN fans I happened to meet a few months later in different places (one wearing a UCONN sweatshirt), neither of them had any knowledge of their baseball team's success.

You wouldn't find that here in Columbia, where all sports fans who've lived here at least two years know about gamecock baseball. In fact, our two National Championships were celebrated with parades that had more than 40,000 spectators, although the parades were on weekdays.

But there are at least 60 schools where baseball is high-priority, per "USA Today". But attendance stats indicate that at least 40 of those 60 have little fan support. And there are about 230 other Division 1 baseball programs who must have few fans.

So I'm interested in hearing from programs that have little fan support despite competitive success.

[ousooner_85]

Here in Oklahoma its not the draw that it used to be back in the Big 8 days with Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. The Sooners have been pretty decent lately and have a solid team this year. The Bedlam Series with Oklahoma State (which typically brings in 9-12 thousand fans) plays Friday night in Tulsa at AA Tulsa Drillers Stadium and the Saturday/Sunday games are played in Oklahoma City at AAA Redhawks ballpark. Outside this series there aren't many big crowds.

[sox83cubs84]

You mean college baseball exists in the Chicago area?

Dave Miedema