What's happened to the Hog's bats??
When you look at attendance figures for the SEC, you see Razorback fans set the bar in the most attended conference in America. 8 out of the top ten home crowds in the SEC were at Baum. We averaged over 8000 per game - the only team to do that. But when you look closer to the numbers, you see that we had less home games than any other conference team.
But Hog fans once again packed the stands to watch their team lose a series - which has happened 3 times this season. How can this be? Mid-season this team was looking like a lock for a national seed, but some are doubting we will even host a regional, now.
I'm not.
Here's how things are going to go:
The Hogs play Alabama on Wednesday morning in the Alabama Invitational, sometimes known as the SEC Tournament. If you are going to have to play the Tide with their home crowd, 10am on a weekday is the right time to do it. The tourney is double elimination, and the Razorbacks have to remember how to win before they lose 2. They will - you can take it to the bank. If we can get to the Sunday championship game, we just might get back in the picture for a Top 8 seed in the NCAA.
Then we will be hosting four teams come the first of June (one of them might be Texas A&M or Oklahoma State, since they may have played themselves out of hosting this past weekend). I see us being matched with a low national seed - right now I'd guess San Diego or Missouri - that hasn't got top-notch campus facilities and might not survive their own regional. Remember the best news, everything changes come regional time - we get umpires with better-than-SEC-mentality. The Nick Schmidt then Jess Todd 1-2 punch is perfect for us to start each of these tourneys, and if we can find those missing bats we can make some loud post season noise.
On the other hand (as a friend reminded me this weekend) the tournaments are mostly a crapshoot anyways. If Brady Toops' long fly ball doesn't clear the fence, the 2004 team doesn't advance out of the regional just like 2003, 2005 and 2006. If Brian Walker's long fly hits the wall or goes over, who knows how far the Hogs would have gone last year.
Also, I want to address the current discussion about who will be do radio play-by-play for the Razorbacks. Mike Nail is still in those seats, but even my buddy Mike would admit that he ain't gonna be in them forever. We learned long ago that we really shouldn't have the same voice for both, and I think the very best situation for Razorback fans in five years or so would be if Scott Inman was doing basketball play-by-play - he's proven to be great at it, and Chuck Barrett can slide from his third chair in the football broadcasts to the first chair as well as doing the baseball. Hog fans are the winners all around.
