Boyd's World-> Breadcrumbs Back to Omaha-> Who Are Our Yankees?

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Who Are Our Yankees?

While watching the Yankees dismantle the Red Sox Sunday night, I got to wondering: Who are our Yankees? Who's the college team with a large fan base (a sizeable portion of whom are the sort of weak-willed bandwagoners that pull for the Yankees, Miami Hurricane football, and Manchester United all, if they've paid attention enough to know about Man U) and whom almost everyone else actively roots against? I mean, I assume there are Brewers fans out there, but it's hard to imagine anyone caring enough to hope they lose an otherwise meaningless game.

What are, as the say in HR land, the qualifications for the position? I've already mentioned the large fan base. You also need a large number of past championships, enough to create a sense of whiny entitlement in that fan base. You need an expectation that they'll win something every year, or at least get to the postseason. Finally, you need the perception that they have an unfair advantage built into the very system of the game. Bonus points are awarded for things like possession of their own media empire or announcers who reference old conquests after every third pitch, especially if it's done in the sort of reverent tones usually reserved for Papal funerals or golf announcers.

I don't claim to have my finger on the pulse of the nation (or any other disgustingly biological metaphor) enough to know the answer to this question, so I really want to hear from y'all on your choices. In the mean time, here are three nominations:

Southern California. "Winners of 12 NCAA championships, more than twice as many as any other school." That phrase, perhaps appropriate once a year in a media guide, appears early in literally every release from the USC West program. You've got to be tremendously nice guys to overcome that sort of bragadociousness. On the other hand, the fan base isn't that large, given the general lack of interest in the game in the LA area, and they're a high-dollar private school, so there's no systemic advantage. Add to that the fact that they've only won one title in the last quarter century and have been downright close to mediocre the last couple of years, and we may be looking at the Celtics rather than the Yankees.

Texas. Lots of titles, an enormous endowment, a tendency to play loose with the rules in ways not even available to teams with fewer resources, and a tendency to look down on their agricultural or rural neighbors make them a tempting candidate. Add in a sense of fan entitlement that would have fired the winningest coach in the history of the game if they had had one more average year. Then toss in the annoying Eyes thing, combined with the Aw, Shucks, It's Our Tradition faux cluelessness thing when someone objects, stir, and serve.

Louisiana State. Lots of titles, at least some of them of semi-recent vintage? Check. Huge, semi-drunken fan base, convinced of a massive umpire conspiracy against them? Check. Systemic advantage, in this case the ability to essentially hold fall tryouts for scholarships? Check. Annual assumption that they will win their conference? Check, although in this case the assumption is incorrect. Own media empire? Check -- the SEC teams, the Tigers in particular, have actually been successful enough at negotiating regional TV rights that they turned down ESPN's request to show games for free; WWL, their flagship radio station, covers a fourth of the country at night.

So, what say you? One of these? One of my honorable mentions, like Miami or Wichita State? Someone I'm missing entirely? Special points will be given for creative vitriol on this one; let me hear from you.

By the way, I apologize for missing last week; I was busy creating the functionality behind the Leaderboard, and the time got away from me.

This means absolutely nothing, ignore it.

This is one generic layman's predictions for who gets in the tournament. I'm not going to bother picking a team from the one-bid conferences, since the conference tournament will just be a crapshoot, but if I only list one team from a conference, they'll get an at large bid if they don't get the automatic bid.

America East         Miami, Florida   Coastal Carolina     Arkansas
A10                  Florida State    UC Irvine            Alabama
CAA                  North Carolina   Long Beach State     Auburn
Horizon              Georgia Tech     Cal State Fullerton  Vanderbilt
MAAC                 Clemson          Cal Poly             Tennessee
MAC                  Central Florida  Oregon State         Mississippi State
MEAC                 Texas            Stanford             Northwestern State
Ivy                  Texas A&M        Arizona State        Wichita State
Brigham Young        Nebraska         Washington           Evansville
NEC                  Texas Tech       Arizona              Rice
OVC                  Baylor           Southern California  Nevada
Patriot              Missouri         California           East Carolina
SWAC                 Michigan         Louisiana State      Tulane
Pepperdine           Illinois         Mississippi          Southern Mississippi
Oral Roberts         Rutgers          South Carolina       Coll. of Charleston
Louisiana-Lafayette  Winthrop         Florida              Georgia Southern

Rather than keep returning to the subject of pitch counts and pitcher usage in general too often for my main theme, I'm just going to run a standard feature down here where I point out potential problems; feel free to stop reading above this if the subject doesn't interest you. This will just be a quick listing of questionable starts that have caught my eye -- the general threshold for listing is 120 actual pitches or 130 estimated, although short rest will also get a pitcher listed if I catch it. Don't blame me; I'm just the messenger.

The Zink count is a correction based on his actual pitch chart.

(*) Pitch count is estimated.

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Boyd's World-> Breadcrumbs Back to Omaha-> Who Are Our Yankees?

About the author, Boyd Nation