Athletic Director Pat Kilkenny’s words after announcing the return of baseball to the University of Oregon were optimistic. “I think we have a dream with baseball and hopefully it’s a dream we can realize,” he said. It was announced Friday that, after a 26-year hiatus, baseball would return as an intercollegiate sport at the University of Oregon in the 2008-09 school year.
The addition of baseball had been rumored throughout the spring and the beginning of the summer, including an article in the Register-Guard from July 7 that listed many sources who believed an announcement would be made soon thereafter. Therefore, the announcement isn’t a true out-of-left-field move, and, as Senior Associate Athletic Director Renee Baumgartner said Friday, “I think that baseball comes up every single year.”
Whether or not the University is receptive to college baseball’s return, a National League scout (who requested to be quoted anonymously) believes Eugene is one of the best locations for such a team. “It seems like a good and challenging opportunity for the school,” the scout said. “A baseball team in the Pac-10 benefits from many things, not the least of which is a nationally competitive schedule.
“I believe a school starting from scratch… may have a better chance of competing in a conference like the Pac-10 than a school who has been around a while, but just struggling,” the scout added. “I think a program could become competitive a lot quicker if they leveraged some of the scouting, player development and coaching strategies that a big league team incorporates. Whether its optimizing a lineup or making the most efficient use of a bullpen, the data is out there for college coaches to use to their advantage.”
There is a precedent for teams climbing the ranks through college baseball quickly – though, as with every sport, they are still the outlier and not the norm. Kilkenny himself made the comment last Friday: “I don’t know that you can ever look at parallels, but UC Irvine… their situation probably wouldn’t be as good as ours because I think we play in one of the best baseball conferences.” UC Irvine re-established baseball in 2002, and this season reached the College World Series for the first time in school history before being eliminated by eventual champion Oregon State.
The scout also said that the success of Oregon State’s baseball program the past two years underlines that not only can a team in the northwest be successful, but that the region has more talent and better baseball than some may believe.
This is a point that Jonathan Jwayad, a pitcher for three years with Oregon’s club baseball team and its coordinator for two, saw as well. “Any advancement for baseball is positive,” Jwayad said in a phone interview. “Baseball in the northwest, especially in Oregon in the last five years, has grown, and with Oregon State’s success the last two years, and Little League teams being successful, and the Oregon club team, this shows (Oregon and the northwest) isn’t just a desert.”
Oregon has had a club baseball team reach success lately, with four consecutive Club World Series appearances, including a championship game appearance this year. Jwayad thinks a few of the players on the club team could have the abilities to jump up to a spot on what will be a Division I team in one of the nation’s toughest conferences. “Only having three and a half scholarships does open the door,” Jwayad said. “Club players are out there because of their passion to play, and I think that could mean something to a (Division I) coach.”
It is still unknown what sort of schedule Oregon will play in its first season back on the diamond. Oregon has the choice as to when they want to opt into a full conference schedule, which was confirmed with Dave Hirsch, an Assistant Commissioner of Communications with the Pacific-10 Conference. Oregon can either join into the conference in their first season, a decision that Hirsch said “needed to be made soon – though we schedule out to 2010, we can add them in,” or choose to play other teams (including Pac-10 schools) outside of conference play while the program grows.
Hirsch explained there is a precedent for opting in late – when Stanford instituted softball in 1994, they decided to join the Pac-10 following a year of wholly non-conference play. On Friday, Baumgartner said that the choice “can depend on what the coach would like. It depends on what the new coach feels would be in the best interest of the student-athletes and the program.”
Kilkenny denies that the athletic department’s decision (or even the impetus for it) was based off of the success found in Corvallis – calling the decision “totally separate and independent” and saying, “Everything that we do, we don’t unless we feel we can be excellent at it, and we take a very long-term view of it.”
However, it is hard to deny that the two-time defending NCAA champion Beavers will certainly become rivals and peers for the reestablished baseball program. Though Oregon State baseball coach Pat Casey was on a recruiting trip and unavailable for comment, Oregon State Assistant Sports Information Director Kip Carlson said that if Oregon were to not play in the Pac-10 their first season, “It’s the coach’s decision (on non-conference scheduling)…(but) there’s time to look at what the options may be.”