Why do people want ISU Baseball back so much?

[SEIOWA CLONE]

SO far 70% of the most diehard Cyclone fans are either against it or would NOT support it if brought back....

That makes this impossible. Even before you consider climate

I am not quite sure that is what 70% are really saying. Its more like "if we can bring it back and by doing so not hurt the existing programs, money wise," than many would be for it.
Few people are going to travel 2 or 3 hours to Ames to watch a baseball double header, I made the trip once, just because I worked with the uncle of the coach at Upper Iowa and they were playing ISU, so we drove up, drank a few brews and watched a cold double header that day. The nephew left Upper Iowa within a few years to become the UNI coach, when they folded their program he ended up in Illinois coaching and now has his dream job, as the head baseball coach at EIU.

It was fun to do and get to talk to the coach and his wife, but outside of that, it makes for a long day.

Get someone to give the dough, then it would be great for the university and ISU, otherwise, a hard pass.

People have to remember that is tough playing baseball in Ames in the spring, compare to all the teams we would end up playing that can get outside much of the winter to practice. The Big 10 has all the team in the same boat geography wise, so no one really gets much of an advantage with the warmer weather, not the case in the Big 12.

 

[heitclone]

I dont think that many people really want it back. I'd like to see them have a team but it would honestly rate below fb, bb, wbb and vb for me. I don't watch hockey but that would seem like a better investment...better chance to build a program and it would have more potential as a spectator sport.

 

[Turn2]

Big 8 conference record, 1990-96
Oklahoma State - .701
Oklahoma - .588
Missouri - .480
Kansas - .466
Nebraska - .462
Iowa State - .451
Kansas State - .352

Now do football.

 

[NWICY]

Aw that's too bad. I think it was pretty high in the early 2000s when I was at ISU.
5000 is still better than A LOT of P6 schools though.

Yep late 90's early 2000's were the glory days of ISU WBB attendance. It was cheap and fun entertainment.

 

[StClone]

Lyle smith was a classmate of mine and I have good memories of him and his brother. To see a baseball game at Iowa State again would be a renewal of a good thing. Spring in Ames without baseball seemed weird, but we got used to it, unfortunately.

 

[BWRhasnoAC]

I go to I Cubs games a couple times a year when I can find the time. I always enjoy it. Would love another reason to go up to Ames besides football and basketball. Nothing like a Friday night at the ball park.

 

[GrindingAway]

This should also add a question “would you take a couple million from the men’s basketball program to fund a baseball program?”

 

[FallOf81]

You ever watch serious baseball fans at a game with their glove and score card. Yah, don't want to be one of them.

 

[AuH2O]

Back in the early 80's if they had 50 people it was a crowd.

Every yr I say I'm going to go catch an I-Cubs game or the Twins just to go to a game again, but yet I never seem to get it done. I'm a bad baseball fan, enjoy the sport and think it is neat but don't put the effort in to go. I'm glad there are people who do.

I probably went to 15 games or so in the late 90s. I’ve been to close to 200 of my kid’s games. He’s in 7th. I am pretty sure every one of my kid’s games had more people than the best attended ISU game I was at.

They weren’t very good, but were pretty consistently competitive and it was fun to watch. But I am pretty into baseball. The other bad thing is there are a lot of games with pretty bad weather.

 

[NoCreativity]

College baseball just doesn't work well in the Midwest with the weather. The season is just getting over as it finally gets nice out.

As someone who played college baseball I can vouch that I was freezing or dealing with 30mph winds in April 90% of the games.

 

[Bipolarcy]

I don't know what everyone else thinks, but for me, one of the reasons I want it back is it would give us a better opportunity in football to land some of these two-sport stars who also want to play baseball. Not all, but a lot of those guys are QB/pitchers. Would we have landed Mike Busch if we did not have baseball at that time.

But the biggest reason I think we should bring it back is it's a staple of college sports. Even MAC schools have baseball teams. Heck, even Summit Leagues schools have baseball teams. We're the only Big 12 school that doesn't field a baseball team. Frankly, it's a little bit embarrassing.

 

[clonedude]

Baseball sucks IMO. We shouldn't be wasting any money on it that could be going in Campbell's pocket instead. End of thread.

 

[Nothingman]

I will add hockey has some economies of scale...

Add men's hockey. Add women's hockey.

They can share a lot of the needed facilities, administration, and management.

Having both takes care of any potential Title IX issues, whereas baseball would require a women's sport of a comparable number of scholarships... not sure which... to be added.

For the record, here are the women's sports the Big 12 sponsors that ISU lacks...

Equestrian
Rowing

...and that's it.

Not that I think hockey is coming or anything. But if you were going to add one, I think it makes more sense.

And it would finally be an advantage to being the northern most Big 12 team.

 

[theshadow]

Now do football.

Sure thing. Just as soon as we have a thread debating bringing back football.

 

[NorthCyd]

This is a straw man. Hardly anybody really wants baseball back at ISU. It's a vocal minority at best. It's weird that this narrative has popped up because of that article, because I've seen very few actually wanting to bring it back.

 

[HawaiiClone]

How many years and how much money would it take to get there?

I don't remember ISU ever being good at baseball, and in the current sports climate I think it would be even harder to go from nothing to actually good. On the off chance we had a great few seasons, would it get any more fan support than the best year of ISU Softball ever?

College baseball in general gets many more fans than softball so it seems like that would hold true for ISU baseball unless people in Iowa like softball more for some reason.

 

[CycloneErik]

It's something to do after a nice visit to Hickory Park.

 

[HawaiiClone]

I will add hockey has some economies of scale...

Add men's hockey. Add women's hockey.

They can share a lot of the needed facilities, administration, and management.

Having both takes care of any potential Title IX issues, whereas baseball would require a women's sport of a comparable number of scholarships... not sure which... to be added.

For the record, here are the women's sports the Big 12 sponsors that ISU lacks...

Equestrian
Rowing

...and that's it.

Not that I think hockey is coming or anything. But if you were going to add one, I think it makes more sense.

It's nice for a sport to be sponsored by the Big 12, but the example of hockey shows that it's not necessary.

 

[HawaiiClone]

Has anyone heard of the New College Baseball Model that some coaches advocated for that would have baseball start later in the spring? One concern about it is housing the players in the summer, but that's already being done for football, women's volleyball and women's soccer so I'm not sure why it couldn't be done for baseball, too.

 

[drlove]

Has anyone heard of the New College Baseball Model that some coaches advocated for that would have baseball start later in the spring? One concern about it is housing the players in the summer, but that's already being done for football, women's volleyball and women's soccer so I'm not sure why it couldn't be done for baseball, too.

The housing thing starts to be tough for baseball when they only have 11.7 scholarships to split for the whole team. ISU soccer splits 14 schollys between 22 players. I checked 2 schools with baseball, and they had about 40 players.