Are you ready for some baseball?
The weather meant misery. The opponent, Ball State of Muncie, Ind., didn’t mean much of anything to UA baseball fans — unless they’d tuned into late-night television to see David Letterman, by far Ball State’s most visible grad. Yet with weather to make the hardy stay home, a reported — and underestimated in Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn’s view — 4,847 came out to watch Arkansas win, 10-2. On Feb. 20, an announced crowd of 5,887, including Panama President and UA alum Ricardo Martinelli, suffered the cold and a 5-2 Arkansas loss. Sunday morning greeted baseball fans with more than an ominous forecast. It pelted rain that would have only Charlie Brown, alone on the mound while teammates Lucy, Schroeder, Pig Pen and Snoopy stayed home. But with a bare chance of a dry afternoon window interrupting the deluge, they delayed the game’s 1 p.m. start by 20 minutes and played on. An announced 918, some there long in advance shivering under plastic when the rain cascaded, sat on damp seats and weathered it all; most watched every inning of Arkansas’ 9-3 victory. The unpleasant conditions and the number of fans weathering them speak volumes about the Razorbacks’ baseball fever afflicting Arkansas.
“Friday’s game was great,” Van Horn said. “They said 4,800, and it looked like a lot more than that. Saturday’s weather wasn’t quite as bad and more came, and people couldn’t believe we played Sunday and still came out. It was great.” As the opponents, particularly SEC visitors Alabama, Kentucky, Georgia, Auburn and South Carolina, increase in stature and traditional rivalry, and the weather presumably warms from the February freeze, increased attendance is guaranteed.
Every Baum Stadium sky box has been purchased, Norm DeBriyn, the Razorback Foundation’s vice president and retired longtime Razorbacks baseball coach, said. Baum Stadium ticket sales went briskly, exceeding 6,000 early in the ticket purchasing game. And it’s not just at Baum Stadium where Arkansans are attracted. The Razorbacks’ May 11 foray to Central Arkansas to play Louisiana Tech in a non-conference game at the Arkansas Travelers’ Dickey-Stephens Stadium in North Little Rock sold out all reserve seats before March.
Van Horn said the response ensures a Razorbacks’ game at Dickey-Stephens game becoming an annual event. Arkansas and the University of Memphis already have scheduled a home-and-home series in 2011. Memphis will come to Dickey-Stephens, and Arkansas will play Memphis at the Memphis Redbirds' Autozone Park in downtown Memphis.
What feeds this Razorbacks’ baseball fever? Many things. Baum Stadium, built on the tradition of the DeBriyn era, is one of college baseball’s best and fan-friendliest facilities. At a time when Razorbacks football ticket prices are going up and the Razorbacks’ basketball success going down, Razorbacks baseball is both affordable and successful.
Van Horn’s Hogs come off winning the four-team Regional in Norman, Okla. and beat Florida State in the Super Regional at Tallahassee, Fla., to qualify for the 2009 College World Series, the eight-team Mecca in Omaha, Neb., deciding college baseball’s national champion. In Omaha, the Hogs beat favored Cal State-Fullerton and beat Virginia in a 12-inning classic before getting eliminated by LSU, the 2009 SEC champion and eventual 2009 national champion. Also in its favor, Arkansas baseball is decidedly Arkansas. Van Horn and men’s tennis coach Robert Cox are the lone UA alums head coaching UA teams. Van Horn was a junior college-transfer, second baseman for DeBriyn’s 1982 Razorbacks before playing professionally. He returned to Arkansas as an assistant for DeBriyn from 1985 to ‘87 before traveling a head coaching path from Texarkana Community College, to Central Missouri State to Northwestern (La.) State to national prominence at Nebraska. Van Horn’s two College World Series appearances at Nebraska made him Broyles’ hands-down choice as DeBriyn’s successor upon DeBriyn’s 2002 retirement.
With his Arkansas roots, Van Horn “gets” Arkansas. He recruits nationally — as successful college coaches must do — but he hits the recruiting trail hard throughout Arkansas and the Tulsa area, which DeBriyn established and Van Horn retained as a virtual Arkansas West. Van Horn has 11 players from Arkansas, Razorbacks with intangible incentives those who aren’t from Arkansas might not entirely grasp. “I’ve always loved Razorback baseball,” DJ Baxendale said. He’s a Jacksonville native and a highly-sought freshman pitcher from Sylvan Hills High. “To finally reach the goal of playing for my home state, it’s a great feeling.” Jordan Pratt, a pitcher from Harrison, had to take a more convoluted journey through junior college at Arkansas-Fort Smith to become a Razorback. “I had to go to Fort Smith for two years, but it was well worth it,” Pratt said. “It was a dream come true the day I signed here.” As for the players Van Horn and assistant coaches Dave Jorn and Todd Butler recruit from out of state, Arkansas fans more than adopt them as Arkansas’ own. Third baseman Zack Cox of Louisville, Ky., pitcher-center fielder Brett Eibner of The Woodlands, Texas, and first baseman Andy Wilkins of Broken Arrow, Okla., are preseason All-Americans and fan favorites.
Also popular with fans is Mike Bolsinger, the McKinney, Texas, native moving from reliever to No. 1 starting pitcher, and James McCann, the catcher sophomore catcher from Santa Barbara, California. Van Horn said, “I wouldn’t trade for any catcher in the country.”
It’s a baseball love fest that likely can be jaded only by too-great expectations and short memories. Fans guaranteeing themselves Arkansas will advance to Omaha again should recall last year’s Hogs only went 14-15 in the SEC and lost their last eight straight SEC games. They righted themselves going 2-2 in the SEC Tournament, then swept six straight through Norman and Tallahassee and the College World Series opener against Fullerton State. Better Arkansas teams than the 2009 squad — some of which won championships in the SEC and the old Southwest Conference — never made it to Omaha. Van Horn and pitching coach Jorn were DeBriyn assistants during a 1985-87 run when the ‘85 and ‘87 teams advanced to Omaha, but the ‘86 team, the strongest on paper, lasted but three games at Regionals. Both recalled the 1986 great expectations unfulfilled and the complete shock of the 1987 team’s success.
“On paper, in ‘87 we weren’t any good,” Van Horn said. “We were thinking we’d be lucky to go to a Regional. We thought it would be a rough year, but we ended up going to Omaha.”There was Arkansas’ 2007 SEC West championship team with its top three starters Nick Schmidt, Jess Todd and Duke Welker, all drafted to the pros, yet unable to win the Regional it hosted at Baum. Certainly, it was a team better armed to advance to Omaha than the 2009 team that made it.
“There is more to it than the physical part,” Jorn said, “that’s for sure. We shouldn’t have made it last year, maybe, but that team magically just had something going in the clubhouse as far as getting together. Nobody gave us much of a chance, but we had some pretty good leadership.” Most of those 2009 leaders return, just like, Van Horn recalled, key leaders returned to his 2002 Nebraska College World Series team from Nebraska’s first-ever CWS team in 2001. “I think the main reason we went in 2002 is because we knew how to get there.” What about this Arkansas 2010 team getting weighed down by great expectations? “Expectations would be self-inflicted,” Van Horn said. “Our players know it’s a long season.”
A long season Razorbacks fans have committed to watch.
