Spring is here
A new season is soon upon us. Here are some winter ruminations:

Providence
The Providence College baseball team is now a part of history. In a shameless flexing of power, the program was dropped in an announcement early last year. Despite much negative publicity on the move, a brilliant run to the Big East title and NCAA regional final, a school best record of 49-16, a first round draft pick in Keith Reed, and objections from loyal alums like recent Boston Red Sox player Lou Merloni, nothing changed. Coach Charlie Hickey has moved on to Central Connecticut State University, Preseason Big East Player of the Year Mike Scott has transferred to UConn, and the PC baseball team web site feels like a memorial shrine, without noting a cause of death. Yes, things happen, life will go on, Providence may be a better or worse school, but in the true spirit of the mission of college sports, what they did was unforgivable and nauseating. Let's just hope the four freshmen who sued the school for misleading them into coming to play college baseball for only one year set a judicial precedent which scares others from doing this elsewhere.

Norwalk
The greatest success story in New England college baseball? Norwalk Community Technical College. The Connecticut school went an unparalleled 48-0 in the regular season, before beating Quinsigamond in the Region 9 New England final. In the Division III World Series in Montgomery, Ala., they won their first two games, before falling to Richland, Texas and the eventual national champion Gloucester, NJ.

Bats
This space here officially laments the whole bat episode which could have culminated in wood bats or composites throughout the sport. For all the wrangling between the NCAA, coaches and bat companies, things are little different. (We'll have more insight after seeing the effects of the bats with new specifications this season). This summer, the Boston Park League joined the Cape Cod League and the New England Collegiate Baseball League in using wood bats and the games were marked by an increase in good old baseball strategy, and speed of the games. It was an eye-opening experience and mustered thoughts of what could have been...

NCAA bids
Automatic bids for the Division III NCAA tournament are here, for better or for worse. It will be interesting to watch the tournament and note the competitive balance. The shame of it is that New England's best six or eight teams will not necessarily all make it. Simply look at the Little East which had three teams make it two years ago (Eastern Conn., Southern Maine, and UM Dartmouth), or the NESCAC which last year had three teams as well in Amherst, Williams and Trinity. Such things have been endlessly debated before with the NCAA Division I college hoop tournament, but this is different. There is a difference in quality of conferences, just note two recent national champs who came from the Little East (Southern Maine '97 and Eastern Conn. '98). There are not enough at-large bids to support something like that with five conference winners and maybe one or two at-large bids. The only good way of looking at it is that for probably the first time in American history, the rich are penalized and the poor are helped.

Poor Records
What is the deal with all the poor records in New England college baseball? We're not talking conference records, but overall records. Division III teams have a nice consistent scale of great records down to bad records. But if you notice, many Div. I and II conferences have very few teams with winning records, and most of those hover around .500. There are teams below .500 winning their conference tournaments too. Whether it's scheduling hazards or what, it seems quite debilitating for teams to be consistently losing so many games year after year, with all the awfullness that losing brings. Is it possible for New England to have more teams with powerhouse records like the California and FLorida teams we alwyas hear about? Wouldn't it be great if people were more aware of the high quality baseball New England can produce?

Regionals
Here's a call to the NCAA Division I selection committee to bring a regional to New England this year. It was here before and should be again. It would a much deserved boost to New England college baseball overall. Who has the power to get this done?