A new vision for college baseball
My grand plan for bringing college baseball to the level of college football and college basketball continues to evolve.
The latest step in the scheme - replace the outdated conference tournaments with another round of NCAA playoffs.
I know what you're thinking - why, exactly, would we do that?
Aha - I'm on to you.
Here's why - we use that week that we gain from the elimination of outdated conference tournaments to play the entire 64-team NCAA tournament like we currently do the super regionals.
That's right - best two-out-of-three all the way.
We'd also have to shorten the regular season a week - if we wanted to end things up around the same time that we do now, roughly the last week of June.
So there are some disadvantages to this - one less week of Duke-Virginia Tech, for example, and no more double-elimination tournaments that feature starting pitchers who weren't even good enough to get out of the bullpen in the regular season being thrown out to the wolves to keep the season alive.
The advantages are obvious - hey, isn't this the way baseball was meant to be played? I mean, it's worked in the big leagues for the past century or so, and this is how we're sending teams to Omaha and determining a national champion.
The series format will take care of attendance issues, it's made for TV, it will add to fan interest across the board ...
Of course, so would a college-football playoff.
So, alas, we can expect that it will never happen.
I can dream, though, can't I?
- Chris Graham