NCAA hopes new baseball can reverse dip in offense

The NCAA has decided to switch from a ball with raised seams to a flat-seamed ball that is very similar to that used in the minors.

The 2013 CWS statistics reflected what happened during the season. Entering the CWS the national batting average of .274 was the lowest since 1975 (.273), team scoring of 5.28 runs a game was the lowest since 1973 (5.07) and team home runs per game of 0.42 was lowest since 1973 (0.42).

Washington State researchers found that flat-seamed balls launched at a typical home-run trajectory traveled about 387 feet compared with raised-seam balls that went about 367 feet. The findings were duplicated in research by Rawlings, the primary ball manufacturer for colleges.

Dual threat: Heisman candidate Jameis Winston’s talent extends beyond the football field

Martin spent all spring in dugouts with Winston. Yes, Jameis Winston, he of the 25-for-27, 356-yard, four-touchdown, no-pick debut for the Seminoles football team, plays baseball at Florida State, too. It isn’t a lark, either, some side hobby. Winston genuinely loves the sport, and three scouts and executives who saw Winston play in high school told Yahoo Sports that if he had flipped his priorities – baseball as the top sport with football in the background – he would’ve been a first-round pick instead of a 15th rounder in the 2012 draft….

It’s not like the physical talent is lacking for Winston, either. One scout who saw Winston in high school filed a report that called Winston’s fastball a 60 (on the 20-to-80 scale) and a future 70, which means it profiles as a monster pitch, one of the best in the game if he can command it. With a hard curve that has turned into a mid-80s slider and a working-on-it changeup, the scout said, Winston had the upside of a No. 2 starter. Among the size, the stuff and the makeup, it was all there, and his 3.00 ERA and .176 batting average against with Florida State out of the bullpen was a preview of what could be.

The Rangers actually planned on making him a position player. Maybe more than any team outside the Phillies, they love raw athletes, and they’ve hit on a pair recently in Lewis Brinson and Nick Williams. The scout’s report on Winston dovetailed with his freshman-year performance, which showed just how green he was. While his frame projected significant power, Winston’s swing was unrefined to the point he was a 20 hitter. All the extra reps in the batting cage that help full-time baseball players smooth over the kinks in their swing simply weren’t an option for Winston. Something had to give. It wasn’t football. It wasn’t academics. (Winston reportedly was a 4.0 student in high school and carried above a 3.0 as a freshman at FSU.) Baseball bore the brunt of his time crunch, and so it was that Winston hit .235 without any home runs in 119 at-bats.

Florida State is known for breeding dual sport athletes. Remember Chris Weinke?

Oh and some Sanders guy. Keyon I think his name was?

College baseball Player killed

OKLAHOMA CITY—An Australian man attending an Oklahoma college on a baseball scholarship was shot and killed in what police described Monday as a random act of violence by three “bored” teenagers who decided to kill someone for the fun of it.

ESPN: Caple: Triumph and tears, hope and heartache reside just outside walls of Hall of Fame

Glimpses of various aspects of Cooperstown, centered on Cooperstown Dreams Park:

Presutti, the 73-year-old founder of Dreams Park, drives past the park’s 100-plus barracks for the youth teams that live and play here every week during the summer. Against a wonderful backdrop of wooded hills, we roll past some of the 22 ballfields, the 20 batting cages and the concession stands, all precisely maintained. When Presutti spots the rare piece of litter on the well-tended grass, he stops and picks it up. We pass two delighted parents who wave Presutti over and ask him for an autograph, praising him for Dreams Park and his speech at the opening ceremonies. Everyone calls him “Coach.’‘
. . .
There now are 104 teams every week throughout the summer, with a dozen players and four or five coaches per team. Presutti says they turn away thousands of teams a year and that teams put in applications years in advance. There are nearly 17,000 players every summer, each paying $850 to cover their three meals a day, housing, two sets of uniforms, laundry, a commemorative ring, a visit to the Hall of Fame and, of course, the games they play. “And it’s worth every penny,’’ one mother tells me.

The bad news is that they installed parking meters on Main Street. Read the whole thing, then visit.