I was a peripheral college baseball fan before this season. I enjoyed it, but didn’t try to plug myself into the national scene. I’m also a big believer in East Coast bias in all media — sports media not excepted.

So this season, I think I’ve learned a lot about college baseball, the way it’s covered in general, and the fans. Here are a few things I’ve learned:

California is a good place for college baseball, but the South is insane.

California has a lot of college baseball teams, but people care about college baseball a whole lot more in the South, and the numbers back it up.

At the end of the season, the SEC dominated in attendance, drawing numbers that look like those of a bad Major League Baseball team.

SEC has set a new record with over 2.25 million in paid baseball attendance during the 2014 regular season.

— Chuck Dunlap (@SEC_Chuck) May 18, 2014

Nearly half a million of that total comes from the state of Mississippi alone. LSU 380K. ARK and SC both over 1/4 million each.

— Chuck Dunlap (@SEC_Chuck) May 18, 2014

LSU ended the season in first place in attendance, drawing over 378,00 fans in 35 home games. Ten of the top eleven and 12 of the top 14 total attendance leaders were from the SEC or ACC.

Cal Poly, in the midst of the greatest baseball season the school has ever seen, drew the 41st-most fans in the country. In a city like San Luis Obispo, it’s nothing to scoff at — just over 45,000 fans in 30 games — but let’s not compare it with what happens in the SEC and ACC.

Baggett Stadium is a great place to watch a game. It drew the 41st-most fans in college baseball this year. By Owen Main

San Luis Obispo is the kind of town this can be sustainable in. Maybe.

All that being said, SLO isn’t the typical place to find a university in California. Located in a more rural county, San Luis Obispo probably has more in common with an SEC college town than maybe any other college town in California.

For that reason, I have a little bit of hope that with some continued, sustained success, college baseball in San Luis Obispo could be a lot more popular. There are only 45,000 people in in the city of San Luis Obispo and about 275,000 in the entire county — not exactly a metropolis.

There are also five or six quality beach towns, lots of wine, and about a thousand other things to do than watch baseball. I don’t think sustaining an average of 1,500-2,000 fans per game is an unreasonable goal for the program.

When things like this happen though, during a season like they’re having, one has to wonder….

RT @pistolpete565 : Someone really just asked me if baseball season has started yet! Are you serious?

— fansmanship (@fansmanship) May 20, 2014

What about that East coast bias?

Does the East coast bias exist? I believe it does.

I also believe that, in a lot of ways, it’s justified. If I owned a website that covered college baseball nationally, I would look at the above numbers that reflect Southern fansmanship and skew my coverage waaay in that direction. Add to that the fact that SEC and ACC teams are really good and have great RPI’s and you have a system that promotes the game where the game is the strongest — SEC and ACC country.

UCLA, arguably the most successful West coast school of late, has a stadium that holds 1,820 people. Oregon and Oregon State — two other Pac-12 powers — have facilities that accommodate for 4,000 and 3,248 people respectively. These are big numbers, but they don’t sell-out every game all season and, if they did, they wouldn’t even break the top-10 nationally.

Also, let me make this clear. Guys like Aaron Fitt, John Manuel, Eric Sorenson Kendall Rodgers, and Shotgun Spratling do yeoman’s work. In Major League Baseball there are 30 teams that get covered by countless writers. In college baseball, a small core group cover over 300 Division 1 teams, and it seems like guys like Fitt could name most of the starters on most of the top 100-150 teams in the nation. They do a great job.

In the end, arguing bias doesn’t matter

Fans on the West coast can argue an East coast bias all they want, but in the end, it doesn’t really matter. Teams that are national contenders will host regionals. Teams that are good will make it to Omaha. Six of the past ten national champions have come from a conference on the West Coast. Despite there being far fewer Division 1 schools West of Texas, the schools that have made the College World Series from the West have fared relatively well.

Listen, I’m not here to start a fight. I’ve lived in the South. I’ve seen what SEC football can do to people. I can imagine what happens during football’s offseason. By every measure, college baseball in the South has more eyes on it and is more important to the general population there than anywhere else. On some level, I get the bias in this sport and I am on-board with supporting fan-bases that come out in droves.

On Monday though, neither fans nor the media won’t be the one who selects who gets in the tournament and what regional they go to. That is up to a selection committee that has shown a good deal of thought in recent years when it comes to selecting NCAA Tournament teams. They seem to do a pretty good job of understanding RPI bias.

Cal Poly felt like they got snubbed two years ago. Last season, they showed they belonged in a regional. So, what’s the next step? I guess we’ll find out next week.

To view attendance numbers for all NCAA schools go here, choose Division 1 baseball, and go to “Misc. Reports.”

After winning 10-1 in the series finale to sweep Baseball America’s preseason 22nd-ranked team, the question I find myself asking is what was most impressive about the sweep.

Pitching

Slater Lee looked awfully good for the Mustangs on Saturday night. By Owen Main

Cal Poly’s pitching starts with Matt Imhof. The junior has the highest of expectations this season after a dominant performance in the UCLA regional last year and a Team USA stint over the summer.

The numbers two and three starters are much more of a question-mark. Slater Lee (Saturday starter) is a true freshman and the Sunday starter, sophomore Casey Bloomquist, had an ERA over 5.00 last season.

After Imhof combined on a shutout with closer Reed Reilly on Friday, Lee and Bloomquist basically followed-suit. Lee struck out seven in 6 1/3 innings on Saturday, giving up just one run. Bloomquist gave the Mustangs five solid innings, also giving up just a single run.

In-all, the Mustangs gave up just three runs in three games against a nationally “elite” offensive team. Runs can sometimes be hard to come by, but when your pitchers pitch like the Mustangs did this weekend, so much pressure is taken off everyone in the lineup. Championship teams have great pitching — plain and simple.

It’s Jimmy

After a somewhat disappointing junior campaign, Cal Poly senior third-baseman Jimmy Allen was drafted by the Boston Red Sox in the 23rd round. Instead of going pro, Allen decided to spend his summer with the San Luis Obispo Blues and come back to the Mustangs for his senior year. Allen had three RBIs in the first two games of the Kansas State series and provides senior leadership to a relatively young infield.

If Allen is back to the form he showed during his sophomore season, his presence in the heart of Cal Poly’s batting order also gives the Mustangs more quality lineup depth than they probably had last season, when scoring runs became an issue in the Regional.

Swagger

Sophomore Brian Mundell went 5-9 in the weekend series. By Owen Main

They’ve only played three games, but this team seems to exude a little more confidence. All baseball players have swagger, but teams who win consistently always have the most.

The development of sophomores Brian Mundell and Peter Van Gansen is a huge factor in the swagger department. No longer wide-eyed freshmen, the pair of sophomores seem to be fully comfortable and confident from day-one.

Mundell, back this season from Tommy John surgery, led the team with 11 home runs last season and demands respect from opponents. He was 5-9 in the series with five walks and two big doubles to help break Sunday’s game open.

Van Gansen’s one hit in the series was an RBI double, but his bat isn’t the reason he’s started at shortstop since his first game as a freshman. Anchoring the Cal Poly defense, “Pistol Pete” made several smooth plays throughout the series. With Van Gansen as the defensive anchor, Cal Poly only made one error the entire weekend.

Pitching, defense, hitting. Unless baseball has special teams, I’d say this year’s (now 22nd-ranked) Cal Poly squad looked pretty complete in their opening series.

Photos by Owen Main

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