Resurrecting Terrier baseball

This year, baseball practices in the Shed have an increased intensity. The ball is being thrown a little faster. The swings are a little harder. No longer just a place for students to warm up before intramurals, the Shed has become the practice site for the newest team at BU.

For the first time in years, there are actually people from BU getting ready for a baseball season. Not the Red Sox, not intramural softball, but actual college baseball. Even if it isn’t a varsity sport, it will be refreshing to know that there is competitive baseball being played here.

For a long time, BU baseball was a lot like BU football or Jon Westling logic: an oxymoron. If everything goes according to plan, BU club baseball hopes to change that, starting April 1.

None of these players are on scholarship. No one is making any money off this team. In fact, the players are paying to be on the team. Players are not refusing to play where the coaches want them. And if that isn’t enough, the team had practice this morning at 6:30 a.m. Unlike some teams here, they aren’t lucky enough to have their schedules made around practice time. So they make time. A nice change of pace from the major league. Everyone on this team, from President Lazer Berman and Vice President Michael Cooper, to the last man on the bench, is doing this strictly for the love of the game.

Center fielder/pitcher Nathan Cockrell says, “We practice three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, from 6:30-8:30 a.m. We’re still trying to get the word out. A lot of people are surprised when we say there’s a baseball team here and they wonder what we’re doing up so early.”

The Club Sports Office has probably ben the most dangerous opponent the team will face all season. According to Cooper, “The biggest thing was getting a guaranteed field to play on, otherwise the Club Sports Office would not approve us.” Since neither Nickerson Field nor the BU Beach will do for a real baseball team, the team will travel to Ashland for their “home” games.

Cooper, one of the team’s captains, continued, “Once we had a field guaranteed, we had to show the support was there. That part was no problem.” The team had plenty of students willing to play, and there was a remarkable turnout at tryouts earlier this year.

When Berman first brought the idea to the Club Sports Office, he was laughed at.

“There were so many problems,” he said. “It’s hard finding a field in the city, and they didn’t feel we would get enough support. They said this wasn’t the right school for a club baseball team.”

Things started to change this year. Berman continued, “The real key was finding a field and showing them that there was plenty of support, which there was, as evidenced by the tryouts.”

There were two sets of tryouts, one in the fall and one in the spring. In total, almost 100 kids tried out, making the final cuts extremely competitive. Both Cockrell and Berman commented on the competitive nature of the tryouts.

“All the kids we took were either captains of their teams in high school or all-stars at some level, making the final cuts tough,” Berman said.

“With little overlap between the tryouts, it got a lot tougher during the spring,” Cockrell said.

Unlike many things at BU, the club team is not yet partially funded by your Undergraduate Student Fee.

The team plans on receiving funding next fall, as it enters its second season. For now though, the team is relying on dues from the players and sponsors. The sponsors consist mostly of friends and family of the players, who are willing to donate money to the team. Big money free agents always say it isn’t about the money, but we all know the truth. Next time A-Rod or Mike Hampton says it isn’t about the money, ask them if they would pay to play, and if they’d be willing to practice at 6:30 a.m. before a full day of classes.

The season, which begins in less than two weeks, consists of games mainly against the club team from the University of New Hampshire and teams from the Massachusetts Amateur Baseball League (MABL). This competitive league consists mainly of ex-college players, competing on a semi-pro level. Unfortunately, most club teams in the Northeast play a fall schedule. The weather is much more conducive to baseball in September or October than it is in March and April, when snow is still on the ground.

“Next fall we hope to begin our season in September and play through October and even the beginning of November if it’s nice enough,” Cooper said. They would still have a spring season, but would play more games in the fall.

The team may have achieved a lot by just getting started, but they are far from their ultimate goal. This year marked the beginning of the National Club Baseball League, featuring about 40 club teams throughout the country. BU hopes to join this league soon, possibly forming a division with UNH, Providence and others. Providence, which just lost its varsity team a few years ago, finds itself in a similar position as BU.

For the month of April there will be competitive collegiate baseball on BU’s campus for the first time since the early 1990s. If you’re fed up with the whining, “disrespected” millionaires who play across the street, you might want to check out BU’s new club baseball team. It isn’t March Madness and it isn’t a New Year’s Day bowl game, but it is a group of students playing a great game because they love it.

So, we may not have a football team and Jon Westling might not have a master’s degree (Can you believe that at a big University where most of the professors have Ph.Ds, the president doesn’t even have a master’s?), but at least one BU oxymoron has been eliminated.