Is College Baseball in Minnesota on Life Support?

– January 28, 2013Posted in: Big Ten, Division 2, Division 3

The Minnesota Vikings are currently in negotiations to build a new stadium to replace the aging Metrodome. Currently, during the winter months the Metrodome serves as the home of the University of Minnesota baseball program and many other smaller college and high schools. The Gophers consistenly play one of the best home baseball schedules in the Northeast since they are able to play indoors and will host the Texas Longhorns this spring. This could potentially change the way the Gophers schedule in the next couple of seasons if the proposal comes true.

The new stadium calls for the football sidelines bleachers to be within 40 feet of the football sidelines which would cause the right field corner of a baseball configuration to have a wall only 285 feet from home plate and a power alley of 319 feet. Not many college baseball programs are going to travel to Minnesota to play in such a bandbox configuration. You can check out the full article from The Star Tribune by clicking here which includes a graphic of the proposed new configuration.

What do you think of the proposal?

Tags: Big Ten, Division 2, Division 3, Minnesota, New Facility

About Brian Foley

Brian Foley is the founder and Lead Editor of College Baseball Daily since its inception in 2005. He has covered two CWS, multiple NCAA Baseball Regionals, and other special events across the country. In addition to his duties with College Baseball Daily, he has covered games for Inside Lacrosse and been featured in USA Today, Wall Street Journal among other publications. He can be contacted by email at editor at collegebaseballdaily.com and followed on Twitter @BFoley82.

guest29

typo: gophers play best sched in “northeast” ?
- http://collegebaseballdaily.com Brian Foley
  
  Nice catch
  
  Brian Foley
  Editor of College Baseball Daily
fred4945

When is the Big 10 commissioner going to make good on his threat to take the league out of NCAA national competition to form their own summer schedule?

THAT will be a great day for college baseball! Their whole league is a joke, not just Minnesota. What serious league travels 1500 miles to Florida for the purpose of playing the other cold-weather league (the Big East, whoever is in it this week)?

Irrelevancy is like pregnancy; one of the irrelevant teams cannot become less irrelevant.
- http://collegebaseballdaily.com/ Brian Foley
  
  This is more focusing on D-2, D-3, and NAIA schools which might end up having to drop their programs if they have to travel in the early part of their schedules.
  - NECBLfan
    
    Agreed, it’s scary. To pick an example of a possible solution out, though, D-3 Northeast schools Williams and Middlebury play a three-game conference series in Arizona each year, in order to avoid weather problems. If enough spring breaks match up, perhaps the NSIC and others might be able to save games this way?
  - fred4945
    
    Brian,
    
    If the focus is on the D-2, D-3 programs, why is D-1 U. Minnesota the only program mentioned in the article?
    - http://collegebaseballdaily.com/ Brian Foley
      
      I guess you missed this sentence…
      
      “Currently, during the winter months the Metrodome serves as the home of the University of Minnesota baseball program and many other smaller college and high schools.”