Dirtbags Baseball - Long Beach State 49ers

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Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Dirtbags May Have Inside Track To Hosting Regional

This from Baseball America:

Projecting The Field Of 64

By Will Kimmey
May 24, 2005

The hosts look pretty standard here in our projected 64-team field, with 14 No. 1 seeds earning host duties.

The No. 2 seed hosts both are interesting. College of Charleston has gone 44-11 overall, 27-3 in dominating the Southern Conference for a second straight year. Internet RPI models rank the Cougars in the top 10, and the program submitted a large financial bid to serve as a host at 6,000-seat Joe Riley Ballpark in Charleston, which doubles as the home of the Class A RiverDogs.

I read elsewhere that they bid at least $100,000.00.

Arizona seems like a logical enough host choice as it will finish first or second in the Pacific-10 Conference and has been ranked in the Top 10 most of the season. However, fans haven't flocked to Jerry Kindall Field at Frank Sancet Stadium to watch the Wildcats, so coach Andy Lopez decided to submit a regional bid with a smaller financial guarantee so that the school would not lose money.

That might not be enough to win a host site on the competitive West Coast, where Arizona State, Cal State Fullerton, Long Beach State, Oregon State and Stanford all are competing to bring a regional to campus. That brings Rice into play. The Owls have proven a fine host at Reckling Park the last few seasons.

Notably absent from the list of schools bidding is the Univ. of Southern California. Stanford is 39th in RPI, which would seem to place them at the rear of the pack. In my opinion, the Beach comes out ahead of ASU. The Dirtbags have a higher RPI, are likely to finish 2nd in the Big West Conference while the Sun Devils will finish 3rd or (more probably) 4th in the Pac 10, and Long Beach State won the head to head series in Tempe. ASU has also just lost 3 series in a row.

Mark Etheridge at SEBaseball.com has a slightly different take on the western Regional picture:

Arizona did not submit a bid to host a Regional and will look to win their way to Omaha on the road. They did just that last year. Without the Wildcats, there is a shortage of western teams who have earned a host spot. Oregon State is going to host. Fullerton is going to host. Long Beach State is next in line. After that, Arizona State is fading and Southern Cal is just a notch below the host clubs in facility and in resume. They may just get two hosts but I suspect there will be three. I would be shocked at four Western host spots without Arizona.

It seems more likely that Arizona did submit a bid, as Will Kimmey reports, since he seems to have specific information about the bid. Neither directly say that USC did not submit a bid, but both seem to dismiss USC as a host.

Here is how Baseball America sees the brackets:

National seeds indicated in parentheses
Projected host sites in bold
* Projected automatic bids

New Orleans Charleston, S.C.
1. Tulane* (1) 1. Tennessee
2. South Carolina 2. College of Charleston*
3. UNC Wilmington* 3. Virginia
4. Southern* 4. California

Fullerton, Calif. Houston, Texas
1. Cal State Fullerton* (2) 1. Arizona
2. Stanford 2. Rice*
3. Oklahoma 3. Vanderbilt
4. Harvard* 4. Illinois*

Corvallis, Ore. Long Beach, Calif.
1. Oregon State* (3) 1. Long Beach State
2. Missouri 2. Southern California
3. Cal Poly 3. Pepperdine*
4. Army* 4. Nevada-Las Vegas*

Lincoln, Neb. Tallahassee, Fla.
1. Nebraska* (4) 1. Florida State
2. Arkansas 2. Alabama
3. Creighton* 3. Wichita State
4. Illinois-Chicago* 4. Troy*

Atlanta, Ga. Oxford, Miss.
1. Georgia Tech* (5) 1. Mississippi
2. Winthrop 2. North Carolina
3. Auburn 3. Michigan
4. Georgia Southern 4. Jacksonville State*

Gainesville, Fla. Miami
1. Florida* (6) 1. Miami
2. North Carolina State 2. Southern Mississippi
3. Florida Atlantic 3. Miami (Ohio)*
4. Quinnipiac* 4. Marist*

Austin, Texas Clemson, S.C.
1. Texas (7) 1. Clemson
2. Texas Christian 2. Coastal Carolina*
3. St. John's* 3. East Carolina
4. Rhode Island* 4. North Carolina A&T*

Baton Rouge, La. Waco, Texas
1. Louisiana State (8) 1. Baylor
2. Louisiana-Lafayette* 2. Arizona State
3. Northwestern State* 3. Mississippi State
4. Maine* 4. Oral Roberts*

posted on 5/25/2005 by Jeff Agnew

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