2012 College Baseball- Road to Omaha

It was some time in the late 80s I believe.

 

What a fantastic game SC and Arky are staging now with a bert in the CWS finals at stake! 2-2 in the 6th.

 

A shame the home plate ump performed so poorly.

 

USC will be attempting to become the second school to win three consecutive CWS titles.

The other USC won five from 1970-74. No one else has won more than two in a row.

 

Arkansux Razorcocks.

 

USC won five in a row. The "other" USC is trying to win three in a row.

 

No kidding. My son and I were watching the game last night and he said, "I've never heard of South Carolina being called USC." And I said, "That's because in 49 states, the District of Columbia and all over the world USC is the University of Southern California."

And "Carolina" is UNC.

Still, an amazing achievement by the Gamecocks, considering the turnover in college baseball. And they've figured out how to win. something UNC never has been able to do.

Those SC teams in the 1960s and 1970s were unbelievable. It's also unbelievable how badly that program has fallen, thanks to poor coaching hires (you fire Mike Gillespie for Chad Krueter?), and a lack of institutional investment.

Dedeaux Field, once the gem of the Pac-12, might rank ninth or 10th right now. Only Washington's and Cal's are worse since Wazzu has made some facility investments in baseball. And if Cal can raise $10 million or whatever to save its program, somebody at SC ought to be able to raise some money from successful baseball alums to fix their problems.

 

Kreuter was ridiculously bad. A friend of mine with a strong baseball background told me about his son's recruitment.
The kid really wanted to go to USC. Kreuter, during the recruiting visit, kept saying how the program had faded and he was determined to bring it back. The winning mentality was lost and he was aiming to get it back. Mind you, he was basically ripping the previous coach, Mike Gillespie, his father-in-law. My friend thought this was all a little weird.
At the end of the recruiting visit, Kreuter offered the kid most of a scholarship and told him to call him in one week after he worked out all the details. A week later the kid called, Kreuter answered and when the kid identified himself, Kreuter started fumbling for words then said to call him back in a hour. The kid called back an hour later, got voice mail. This went on for 2 weeks, Kreuter never returned the call.
End of story: the kid went to the school "across town" and was one of the leading run producers in the Pac-10 for the next two seasons, including the CWS runner-up team in 2010. He now is playing minor league ball and is working his way up through his team's organization.
I am friends with the current USC coach, Frank Cruz. He is a good guy and a hard worker, but he wasn't all that successful at Loyola Marymount and I don't think he is going to get it done at USC either.

 

Don't know that he performed that poorly, just that his strike zone was the size of a postage stamp.

 

I'm with Albert. It wasn't a poor showing by the ump ... but his strike zone was awfully damn tight.

 

Switched in 1988 and was changed it its current format in 1999.

 

The strike zone wasn't just tight. It floated around. Looking at the K Zone replays, he was ringing up hitters on pitches six inches off the plate - then issuing balls on ones in the exact spot an inning later.

Word on twitter last night was Costello was cut loose from working Triple A because of the same problem.