College Baseball Coaches Nearly Come To Blows At Home Plate After Chippy Week
Forget March Madness. That's dumb. (Not really, but stay with me here).
The real action takes play in May and June in the world of college athletics! Don't believe me? It's conference tournament time for college baseball teams across the country right now. This is it. The last weekend to make your case for Omaha.
Asses are on the line. Seedings at stake. You wanna host a regional? Better win. Wanna have a chance to play in the tournament? Make the dance? Go for glory? This is the last weekend to pad the stats, and state your case.
Just ask Stetson coach Steve Trimper, and Austin Peay coach Roland Fanning!
Stetson, Austin Peay had a week of drama before today's game
Oh, hell yes. This is the content we need to get us through the holiday weekend and straight into June. College baseball is so criminally underrated.
Obviously, college football rules all. It's the King of the hill, and always will be. College basketball dominates the world for about three weeks in March. Women's college basketball made a huge comeback this year.
But college baseball? That gets lost in everything, and it shouldn't – especially when it comes to the smaller programs going for glory.
So, here's the background for those who don't follow ASUN baseball drama …
Austin Peay thought they had won the ASUN regular season championship outright. They tweeted as much just last week:
That was six days ago. Congrats to Austin Peay! Nice job, fellas.
Except … whoops! Turns out, the Govs may have jumped the gun, because, in reality, they were co-champs, along with Stetson.
Trimper, being the firecracker he is, made sure everyone knew that, too:
Hilarious. God, I love pettiness. It's the best. It's the backbone of this great country.
Side note: I used to cover Stetson in my former life. Steve Trimper is electric. Guy is a content machine. Go look up the 2018 Stetson Hatters. One of the best college baseball teams I've ever seen.
Anyway, fast-forward a week to the ASUN tournament – down here in my beautiful city of DeLand, by the way – and the baseball Gods just happened to pit Stetson vs. Austin Peay this morning in essentially a do-or-die pool game.
The winner moves on to the conference semifinals. The loser is donezo. Don't get me started on the ASUN tournament layout, because it's beyond stupid. I could write a book on the dumbness of it.
Just trust me on this one.
Stetson, as you can see, ended up winning a slobberknocker, which ended with a Strike 3 call that evidently pissed off the batter.
According to the broadcast, the part you can't see in the above video is the Austin Peay coaches having to restrain the batter from the umpire.
You can see Trimper look a little confused about the lack of a postgame handshake, which then turns into the two skippers nearly throwing fists at home plate.
Love it. Let's roll, baby. This is MAY!
If you're not on the college baseball train yet, there's still time. Nothing better than a little regional tournament action, and it starts next weekend. It's the best.
All aboard!