I looked up the schedule for Michigan baseball. From mid February to Mid march they play all their games on the road in warm places like Florida and Calif. Their first home game is March 14th. Other northern teams probably do the same thing.
Yeah, you’re right and it’s hard for me to explain it. I guess busy planning spring break, going on spring break, making summer plans and arranging housing, and picking fall classes. And, of course that’s on top of the usual papers and exams, that baseball at FSU was really not on my radar even though I knew the teams were good. Plus, aside from the schedule, it never really got much coverage in the student paper.
It’s easy to plan your Saturdays around football, especially with most games at night. College basketball was never a main interest of mine, but we’d go to a few games, student season tickets for both football and basketball were less than $100, so that made it easy to go see a Duke or UNC if I happened to be free.
For baseball, I believe it was free admission with student ID or a very nominal charge and I’d pop in, sometimes
just for a few innings as a change of pace on a nice day and I needed a break from studying. But, yes, social life certainly never revolved around baseball and we certainly never had pregame drinks beforehand.
Pedantic mode: 56 regular season games (plus two games in the fall), not counting games played in Hawaii, and the first game can’t be before the first Friday after 2/12 (2/13 in leap years). Note that conference tournaments must end before Memorial Day, as that is the traditional day when the tournament bracket is announced (this year, at noon Eastern on ESPNU).
I hadn’t really thought about the number of games, but I think that also had a lot to do with why it wasn’t a big deal. Football was an EVENT- there were what… 6 home games back then, and they were always on the weekend, and usually either afternoon or night. Baseball games were all over the map- Wednesday nights, Fridays at noon, Mondays at 10:30 am, etc… and there were like 60 of them crammed into what seemed to be the second half of the second semester- between mid-February through mid-May. That’s 20 games a month, which works out to a game every day and a half, but in practice meant every day with gaps of a few days for travel.
It’s hard to really get worked up about something that almost happens every single day, especially in college, when you’ve got so many other things going on.
Exactly. Here’s FSU’s schedule. While most of the games do fall on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, there’s also a bunch of games during the week.
As you said, football is an event and attending or watching your team draws people who are there for the social aspect just as much as for the football. It’s fun to get dressed up in your college colors, perhaps have a few drinks, and enjoy all the ceremony associated with the game even if you don’t have much knowledge of the sport.
I’ve been following FSU baseball on Instagram, their first game in the college World Series isn’t until Saturday? I always hated the long gap between the end of football season and the bowl game, but at least there were finals and holiday stuff. If I was a student, the last thing I’d be doing is paying attention to college baseball in the middle of June.
I can assure you that Tallahassee is VERY interested in how the 'Noles are doing and, ironically, interest is up this year due to 11’s impending retirement and the ‘search’ for his replacement.*
- It’s Jr. is what everybody’s hearing. I don’t agree with the decision, but I think they had to give him a chance to fail just to give the next guy a fair shot at not having to be ‘not Mike Martin’.
Ok, excellent. I’ve gotten more interested in FSU baseball and basketball since I started following the teams on Instagram. I’ve also gotten more active with the alumni group here.
Bob Feller skipped both college and the minors.