Introduction
Part I : Aluminum Bats
Part II : Skipping Class

Once more I delve into my oft-delayed discussion of college baseball (as much fun as this blogging stuff is, I can only wish that it was my actual job), and this time I’ll start by asking a question:  how many former Bears can you name that are in the majors right now?

(Now, now, don’t cheat by using the drop-down menu below…)

Well, easily our most famous alum is none other than former NL MVP and one-time Barry Bonds sparring partner, Jeff Kent.  Fans who have followed Cal baseball recently will recognize the names ‘Conor Jackson’ and ‘Xavier Nady’, and perhaps you haven’t heard, but our best pitcher last year, Brandon Morrow, has already made the majors with Seattle.  Who else?  Many casual baseball fans won’t have heard of Geoff Blum or Ryan Drese, but Giants fans should remember Tyler Walker.  You know, I’ve watched or listened to more Giants games than I can count, and yet I never heard the announcers mention the fact that either Kent or Walker were local college boys.  Why is that?

Professional football and basketball (especially the NFL) seem to love to connect their players to their alma maters.  Players will announce their college team before big telecasts, and announcers and sportscasters will often refer to a player as a ‘product’ of whatever school they happened to go to.  This, in turn, creates interest in those schools and in college competition in general.  Given the fact that I haven’t followed the college football for that long, there is no reason for me to know that Joe Montana went to Notre Dame and Steve Young went to BYU, but I do, and without even trying.  There’s a ‘link’ between the college and professional ranks that both football and basketball have capitalized on, but that just doesn’t exist with baseball.

Part of the issue is that of baseball’s minor leagues.  When your favorite football team sucks, you look towards next year’s draft for hope.  "Well, this season’s lost," you’ll say, "but at least we get a top 5 draft pick and a shot at that stud from State U."  With baseball, your hope rests with your minor league system.  Even star college players are usually a couple years away from the Show after they’re drafted.  Conor Jackson, a former first round pick out of Cal, took nearly two years after being drafted to make the majors, and he was widely considered a top prospect.  Even Jeff Kent, owner of 355 career homers, mostly at offense-deficient second base, took 3 full years to make the big leagues.

Can anything be done about this?  Well, if MLB were to adopt a rule, as the NFL and NBA have done, to prohibit drafting high school players, that would certainly help, but not as much as you would think.  Sure, more MLB players would have college ties, but college ball will never replace the minor leagues, at least not the high minors.  I can envision baseball dropping some of their single-A teams, but the fact remains that almost no college baseball players can step in and help a major league club the way Marshawn Lynch will be able to help the Buffalo Bills.

The problem is that baseball, moreso than other major sports, is skill-intensive.  You always hear about basketball prospects having ‘abilities you can’t teach’, such as height, leaping ability, wingspan, etc.  Raw athletes can find a place on a football field, returning kicks and helping on special teams while they learn the game.  But major league baseball has no use for the player with tons of talent but no skills.  Such a player could hit the ball a country mile, but might strike out 4 out of 5 times.  They could have a cannon for an arm, but still be a butcher on defense.  A pitcher could throw 100 MPH heat, but still be unable to hit the side of a barn door.  Heck, even someone with track speed can really screw up running the bases.  These players find themselves in the minors, given a shot only if they can demonstrate some baseball skills.

Baseball’s emphasis on skill is the reason most baseball players break into the majors later than their counterparts in football and basketball.  It is also the reason you’ll find more old ballplayers (including those in the plus-40 demographic) than in other sports.  Roger Clemens may not be as physically gifted as he once was, but his incredible skill allows him to still retire major league hitters at a highly effective rate.

The minor leagues will always represent a barrier to the popularity of college baseball.  It takes a truly hardcore fan to follow their favorite players from college, through the minor league ranks, and eventually the major leagues.  For the average baseball fan, however, the college ranks are about as relevant as the Canadian Football League.  So, certainly, this is part of college baseball’s problem.  Of course, the relative obscurity of the MLB draft sure doesn’t help…

Next time (hopefully soon) I’ll (finally) finish this discussion with one more theory, and some hope for the future.