baseball should be played in the summer

Thanks to the inaction of the conference over decades of shortsighted corruption at the NCAA, the Big Ten is a mid-major when it comes to America's Pastime, and that mid-major conference is now watching a Major pick off its best head coach in a century. Per reports, Bakich has accepted the open Clemson job.

Sources: #Michigan HC Erik Bakich is leaving for #Clemson. https://t.co/653hBf6Qdo

— Brandon Justice (@BrandonJustice_) June 15, 2022

Also per reports, Clemson, which plays in the ACC, and where Erik Bakich got his first assistant job in 2002 before moving on to Vanderbilt, tripled Erik Bakich's salary; he was making $400k/season at Michigan and would be getting $1.2 million/year or thereabouts after bonuses. For college baseball that is a Saban-to-LSU contract (only Vanderbilt, TCU, and Louisville pay their coaches more than $1 million), and as long as they play in a mid-major conference it made no sense for Michigan to pony up anything in the ballpark.

In ten seasons at Michigan, Bakich led baseball to a 328-216 record, two conference tournament championships, five NCAA Tournament appearances, and to within one win of a National Championship in 2019, their first World Series appearance since Barry Larkin was at shortstop. Bakich's .603 winning percentage is higher than that of Don Lund and Moby Benedict, and the best of any coach here since 1989. The future was looking even brighter; because the sport's recruiting cycle is so long, this year's and next year's freshmen were the first recruited with Michigan in mind as a contender. As Bakich said last week "we've got some absolute dudes coming in here." Certainly, some of those absolute dudes might not be coming anymore.

But such is life for a school in a conference that doesn't care about the sport. Over the last 30 years, an alliance of big and small schools in the South have pushed the baseball and softball seasons deeper into winter, forcing northern teams to play tournaments in Florida, Arizona, and California in January, February, and March, before trying to squeeze in a conference schedule in April and half of May. They've also allowed the NCAA to limit schools to 12 scholarships (which can be divvied up in fractions) per sport. It's an arrangement that's great for Southeastern power schools, which no longer have to compete with the moneyed programs, better degrees, and richer baseball histories of the North for top talent, and have always supplemented the meager scholarship restrictions by other means. It's also perfect for small southern programs, which often get to host those tournaments, and don't have to divert funds from football to be reasonably competitive. Talk of the Big Ten joining with other northern conferences to stem this tide, either by threatening to leave the NCAA, doing so, or hosting a second season over the summer, has thus far only amounted to that.

Michigan is in considerably better shape than when Bakich arrived, and has a couple of very good options to replace him from his direct coaching tree. Detroit Tigers pitching coach Chris Fetter is a rising star in the sport and coached at Michigan through the 2019 run, though he's probably not interested in coming back unless he desires the lifestyle. Assistant head coach/infield coach Nick Schnabel has been with Bakich since he arrived, and should be ready to take the head job if Fetter wishes to remain in the majors. If they go outside the program, they won't have to go far; CMU's Jordan Bischel has been interviewing for major jobs. Either way, assistant coach/former Tiger Brandon Inge has deep local ties and would be likely to stick around. Current pitching coach Steve Merriman was probably gone either way.

Thus is life for a mid-major program. Trying to match Clemson's offer—and doubling up Carol Hutchins' salary for her men's counterpart in the process—would have been facially ridiculous considering the way of things in college baseball. What really grinds for fans of this team and sport is that it doesn't have to be this way. The few games they do get to play at Ray Fisher are usually well-attended, and a delight. With no other revenue sports active in the summer, and little else (apologies, friend/owner of the local soccer club) going on in town, Ann Arborites would be a sure bet to fill those seats in June, July, and August. Hopefully Michigan will use this as a wakeup call to start pushing the league for more direct action on its own, its players, and its fans behalves. Until they find the guts, ours will get wrenched exactly thus.

Things discussed:

• Seth & Craig come on early (Sam is out sick) to talk about sports analytics
• Softball seeding: Michigan got hosed, the Big Ten got hosed, Washington and the Pac 12 got hosed even worse. Seeding was absurdly SEC-biased.
• Committee based it on the Big Ten not playing out-of-conference games, punishing the conference for protecting their players during a pandemic.
• Will this be what finally pushes the northern schools to leave the NCAA and create their own summer league?
• Would they adapt Bakich’s proposal to make more money? Brian: plausible. Seth: no, because they’re a cartel, and the small schools are driving it.
• How scholarships work in softball/baseball now.
• Matt Campbell turned down the Lions, would you?
• Oregon State DT transfer, and Michigan’s Ravens-like front: will it work?
• Hockey: Brian crosses fingers that Michigan Hockey Summer leaves us at least three of the four guys about to get drafted.
• Hoops: Are they a 1 seed? Their floor is really high, a bit on Bufkin.
• Track is good.
• Let’s change the field hockey rules.

[Hit the JUMP for the player, and video and stuff]

Chuck Christian on Dr. Anderson. In the NYT:

For more than 40 years, Chuck Christian did not call himself a victim because he did not think he was one.

He was a muralist who had played tight end at Michigan. He grew up poor in Detroit but came to be a world traveler. He contracted prostate cancer and outlived his doctors’ predictions.

Then, in February, an old teammate called.

Remember Dr. Robert E. Anderson? The team doctor at Michigan who performed painful, unexplained rectal exams? Someone reported him, the former teammate said, and it turns out that what he did to you, and to so many other players, was probably a crime.

“I realized that he had victimized so many of us,” Christian said in a recent interview.

Schlissel says things that aren't news. A lot of attention has fallen on a Wall Street Journal article in which Mark Schlissel throws some cold water on the idea of playing sports this fall:

"If there is no on-campus instruction then there won't be intercollegiate athletics, at least for Michigan," Schlissel said to the WSJ. He later added he has "some degree of doubt as to whether there will be college athletics (anywhere), at least in the fall."

Warde Manuel said something identical three weeks ago, so I'm not sure why this one is gathering the Twitter yahoos and the other one isn't.

In any case, Michigan is planning on having students on campus for a "public health-informed" fall semester with "as much in-person instruction as possible." That would clear the hurdle Schlissel and Manuel have set. I don't think anyone with an inch of sense should be issuing statements of certainty.

[After THE JUMP: the dream of baseball when it's warm]