Something to factor in if your kid is going to be playing baseball in college. IMHO, It will serioulsy affect academics.
College teams will have to wait longer to 'Play ball'
By Paul Gutierrez - Bee Staff Writer
SAN FRANCISCO-Gabe Jacobo, David Flores and the rest of their Sacramento State teammates have been champing at the bit all winter for the college baseball season to begin, which it does today for the Hornets with a three-game series at Loyola Marymount.
Imagine their angst next year, with implementation of NCAA legislation that will delay the beginning of practice until Feb. 1 and the first game until Feb. 29.
"To start a month later, I guess that just means more scrimmages and intrasquads against your own team," Jacobo, the Hornets' sophomore first baseman, said with a sigh. "That will get kind of old after a while. I'm not too crazy about it, but if it helps out the East Coast schools ... ."
Jacobo's voice trailed off, but his words showed the general feeling Wednesday at South Beach Harbor near AT&T Park as nine head coaches -- Sac State's John Smith, UC Davis' Rex Peters, Pacific's Ed Sprague, Stanford's Mark Marquess, Cal's David Esquer, San Jose State's Sam Piraro, USF's Nino Giarratano, Santa Clara's Mark O'Brien and St. Mary's Jedd Soto -- and assorted players gathered for Northern California College Baseball Media Day.
The NCAA's edict pushes the start of baseball season back to March 1, or to the Friday before March 1 if that date is on a Saturday, Sunday or Monday. Setting a uniform national starting date is meant to eliminate competitive advantages gained by schools in the West and Southwest that generally have abundant good winter weather while schools in other regions are covered in snow.
The new rule is understood, if not necessarily embraced.
"I don't like it," Piraro said. "I don't like it at all. I feel that people that play in good weather and coach in good weather get penalized.
"It's going to prevent young men from honing their skills when they have the opportunity, because baseball, you've got to play a lot."
Said Esquer: "It's going to force coaches to take a little longer Christmas vacation."
But the coaches also cited potential problems caused by the later start date, including cramming more games into a schedule that is one month shorter, leading to more midweek games and more missed class time for players.
"We're in a quarter system (at UC Davis), and we have to stop for a week in the middle of the season, so we're trying to schedule 56 (games) in 13 weeks, and it's dang near impossible," Peters said.
"And then what happens if you get rain during those 13 weeks and you've got to reschedule games?"
Condensing the season also will affect on-field strategy and financial resource management, with more games each week forcing teams to use five-man rather than four-man pitching rotations.
"Baseball is underfunded in terms of scholarship dollars already, and now you've got to go get a fifth starting pitcher," Peters said. Coaches, he said, will have to ask for more scholarship money to pay for more pitching depth and, possibly, larger rosters.
"I understand the concept, but I don't think people understand the can of worms that's going to get opened with this."
Officials of the Western Athletic Conference, of which Sac State and San Jose State are members, have talked about playing four-game weekend conference series, with doubleheaders Saturdays, and nonconference games Tuesdays or Wednesdays.
"But if we don't do four weekend games, then we'd play Tuesday and Wednesday nonconference games," Piraro said. "Either way, you play five games a week. Not everybody has the pitching to do that. But more importantly, you're going to miss a lot of school, and that's not a good thing."
Reducing schedules from 56 games to 52 or 48 would help. In exchange, they want permission to play "fall ball," allowing them to face other D-I programs during the fall term.
"If they take four games away in the spring," Sprague said, "then give us 10 games back in the fall, or maybe just six games -- every Saturday for six weeks."
That way, Sprague argued, the players would not miss school. He also said he expected the NCAA to allow six to eight weeks of fall workouts, rather than the three weeks currently allowed.
Marquess had another idea: playing fall games that count. Otherwise, he said the Pacific-10, Stanford's conference, also might look at playing conference doubleheaders on Saturdays.
Fans also would feel the effect of the compressed schedule, he said, because the opportunity of watching marquee nonconference games would decline as nonconference weekends would drop from six to three.
"Then maybe the local people don't get to see Texas, don't get to see (Cal State) Fullerton," Marquess said. "I think that's a problem. ... I'm more for spreading (the season) out."
So is Giarratano, who proposed college baseball work with Major League Baseball by lengthening its season to July and having MLB move its draft from June to July.
But heard among the speculation was coaches committing to play by the rules. They have no choice.
"I think it's fair because those other schools don't have the same temperature we do, the weather we have," said Flores, Sac State's junior third baseman. "So I think it's fair for schools to start at the same time."
His coach, though, was far from impressed.
"I guess I'm going to wait and make a judgment on how I feel it is once we've gone through it for a year," Smith said, "and see what the impact really was when it's all said and done."
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