College baseball deserves some love

Dalton Vitt

Flat-billed hats, sweaty men selling tickets on the sidewalk and overpriced T-shirts. It’s time for the College World Series.

One of the best 10-day stretches of the sports calendar is here at last, an opportunity to worship athletes we forgot existed for the other 355 days of the year. Unfortunately, college baseball oftentimes takes a backseat to its big brothers, football and basketball, despite being one of the most aesthetically pleasing sports spectacles we have.

Watching Division I college football can feel like donating money to Wal-Mart with the overflow of corporate sponsors sucking every possible dollar out of the sport — you think the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl sounds like an organically produced football game?

Meanwhile, Division I hoops has been “perfected” to the point that the NCAA had to change the shot clock. The game has been boiled down to a point of monotony amongst most schools: run a motion-style offense until there’s a one-on-one in the post or an open three. Don’t get it twisted, this is great for the game itself. An increase in the wealth of basketball knowledge amongst the players thanks to a litany of incredible coaches definitely isn’t a bad thing — but it can be an absolute bore for casual fans.

But that’s a tangent for this winter. The point is, college baseball is nearly the polar opposite. It’s such an imperfect sport that it makes every pitch a split-second sample of unpredictability.

Watching a Major League Baseball game, almost every groundball is vacuumed safely into the cushion of a glove, most mistake fastballs over the heart of the plate are crushed into the seats and there’s rarely a brainless moment of strategic ineptitude.

College baseball, on the other hand, is riddled with pitching letdowns, failed bunt attempts, defensive gaffes and head-scratching coaching decisions. That may sound like a recipe for disaster, you perfectionists, but it’s what makes these games so enjoyable.

Arkansas, which finished fifth overall in the SEC, faces Virginia, the seventh-best team in the ACC, in the opening contest of the CWS on Saturday afternoon. That just goes to show the unpredictability of the sport in general — two teams that crept in to the NCAA Tournament are just a couple of wins away from a shot at the title. And you thought March Madness was intriguing.

The Razorbacks started the season 11-12 and finished 40-23 overall, a wonderful turnaround for head coach Dave Van Horn and his staff to make his fourth CWS appearance in 13 years at the helm. Thanks to center fielder Andrew Benintendi, the seventh overall pick to the Boston Red Sox in this week’s MLB First-Year Player Draft, Arkansas is in position to completely erase any memory of its underwhelming beginning to 2015.

Benintendi is one of the players to watch in the tournament, a rare source of prestigious power and speed in today’s college game — to date, he’s swatted 19 homers to the tune of a .380 average while swiping 23 bases.

While the Cavaliers didn’t have to overcome a poor start, their up-and-down season makes them just as much of a Cinderella in the series’ opening contest. Their stars are sophomore starter Connor Jones, likely to get the call in Saturday’s opener, and closer Josh Sborz, this year’s 74th overall pick to the Dodgers. Jones notched a 7-2 record with a 2.96 ERA in 103.1 innings, while Sborz finished with 14 saves in a dominant 60 innings, posting a 1.95 ERA.

And those are just two examples of the “anything can happen” atmosphere. On the other side of the bracket, Vanderbilt begins its bid for a second straight title on Sunday night against Cal-State Fullerton, which has become a near-yearly fixture at the CWS.

The Commodores offer shortstop Dansby Swanson, this year’s first pick in the draft to the Diamondbacks, and starter Carson Fulmer, another top-10 selection. Alex Bregman, LSU’s junior shortstop, went second to the Astros and finished first-team All-SEC.

Those are just a handful of names to keep an eye on through the tournament, but what makes the CWS so fascinating is that they may have zero impact on the outcome while an unknown teammate rises to the occasion.

College baseball, sadly, is unappreciated, and in today’s social media world, doesn’t normally have the big-name athletes whose names top the trending topics until draft day.

It might be too late to book a trip to Omaha, but, please, give the game a whirl. If imperfection is beauty, college baseball is the darling of them all.