The Nebraska Baseball phenomenon
We’ve been living in a dream world for 10 years but nirvana has come crashing down in 2009. The Nebraska baseball 10 year run came to an end today as Nebraska finished up the 2009 season. No NCAA post season...no Big 12 tournament...last place in the Big 12...and a losing record. Not since Nebraska hired a man named Dave Van Horne have things been this bad at Nebraska. Nebraska was decimated by the MLB draft in the past off season with players on the roster and recruits coming in. There have been rumblings all year that Mike Anderson should be on the chopping block. I don’t think that is fair to Mike but he is definitely on the hot seat. In recruiting circles, Nebraska is very passive. It is very common for college baseball teams to “oversign”. Meaning they will recruit more players than they have spots for, in the thought that some will leave for the pros and you will still have a full recruiting class. But, if no one leaves for the pros and everybody wants to go to school, then some players are left out high and dry. Nebraska doesn’t do this, signs the full amount and hope that the class stays in tact. Well this year the perfect storm of current players leaving and a decimated recruiting class has put Nebraska in a bad spot. And being a northern school, the high prize recruits are few and far between so when they leave, the number of Big 12 talented players on the roster are few and far between.
Nebraska really needs to get back to its roots of hard nosed, gritty, work your ass off baseball. When Nebraska was good they had a bunch of hard working players (Will Bolt, Daniel Bruce, etc) with an occasional superstar mixed in (Dan Johnson, Alex Gordon, etc.) and a dominant Friday night pitcher (Shane Komine, Joba, etc.) I don’t know if Nebraska has any of those 3 this year. Unfortunately it isn’t going to be a fast return back to the top for Nebraska and it might be another couple down years for the local nine at Haymarket Park.
The Comments
jake rhymes with cake says saturday's game May 18, 2009 at 12:48pm
i was at saturday’s game and they shut-out whoever they were playing (as you can tell i was really into the game). i think it was 9-0; we even stole home. ha! i was tanning on the left birm w/ a group of friends; we talked and really didn’t watch the game at all. oops!
buddy says I applaud Mike for not May 18, 2009 at 9:15pm
I applaud Mike for not oversigning, though I will point out he has about 12 underclassmen on his pitching staff now, and I think he signed 6 pitchers last November, so clearly there will be some players not returning in 2010....do like Yost and Kalkowski, just need more confidence to trust their stuff and cut down the walks....