Baseball/Bakich appreciation thread
Well, it didn't go the way we wanted tonight, but I wanted to thank our boys for putting on a show and making June baseball so entertaining!!! Congrats on your wonderful run! It was quite a ride and watching them play gave me a new appreciation for college baseball. Judging by the MGoBoard, this team opened some eyes and picked up quite a few fans.
Here is to hoping this is just a building block in a new perennial powerhouse with many more trips to the CWS in the near future!
After a pretty rough 5 years for the Tigers, this Michigan team made me fall in love with baseball again. What a fun group of kids to follow on this run
Really impressed with how well they played the game throughout the tournament. College kids who took a very advanced approach to baseball and were rewarded.
Go blue!
Hope we can keep Bakich around. Bright things ahead if we can. He's no well kept secret though anymore - a lot of people are going to come calling and there's no denying Big Ten baseball isn't exactly the top of the baseball world. Hope we can keep him
That was fun. Postseason baseball is really exciting, and this was a great bunch of guys to support.
Congratulations on a great, memorable season!
Can't tell if it's exciting or excruciating given the drop off in skill from the pros to college. Of the big 4 sports, this has to be the largest gap.
michigan is unranked, yet has multiple major-league caliber players. what other sport is like that? certainly not basketball or hockey.
further, a college baseball team could knock off a major league team with a hot pitcher. that could never happen in any of the other sports.
Michigan was ranked at the beginning of the year, and if they kept running polls through the CWS, obviously they would have been ranked. It was a mid-year swoon which can happen in baseball that kept them out of the final polls. The talent was always there.
As far as a college team beating a MLB, I don't agree. If you noticed, just about all of the best pitchers really lived off of two pitches. Most MLB starters have at least 3. That inability to mix up three pitches would doom most college starters against MLB pitching. Sure, there are the very rare exception like Casey Mize last year who have 4 pitches in college, but it is rare. That's why you don't see more pitchers jump straight to the majors from college after the draft.
Michigan baseball has made us all proud. It takes a while to build something like this, and Michigan is not done making noise on the national level in baseball. Ray Fisher stadium will be alive next season for the first time... ever
This team made me pay attention to sports again for a hot second there. Always proud of our guys when the represent us so well. Back to the bpone.
Fire the money cannon at Bakich. Get him a nice support staff. Keep Fetter. Profit.
I’ve never been a huge baseball fan never really enjoyed the sport. But this team gave me something to root for and some exciting finishes. Congrats coach Bakich for a great season. This offseason has flown by! Only 65 days until football kicks off! GO BLUE!
Great run, gentlemen! Congratulations on an exceptional season. Thanks for letting us fans be a part of this excitement and GO BLUE!
We'll be able to more properly appreciate the run they had in the future. First time making the CWS since 1984 and only the 2nd B1G to make it since then as well. First time making the championship series since 1962 and the first B1G team to make it there since 1966! If history holds true, then decades from now this team will be a rare blip for both the university and the conference/region as a whole.
But damn is it hard to not be overwhelmingly melancholy over the fact Michigan has lost its 4th national championship game/series this decade because after taking a 1-0 series lead (and starting the CWS 4-0), they went 3-20 w/ RISP in the final 2 games. Michigan's chance to win it all was yesterday. And they went 1-8 w/ RISP, allowed 3 runs on nothing but errors and walks and passed balls, and they lost by 3. I guess Bakich should have went with Criswell yesterday.
We can second guess the decision forever to not start Criswell in game 2. I thought it was a good move to save our best two remaining pitchers for game 3. We had nothing going offensively against Rocker so I don't see how Criswell could've helped our offense there.
In the end we were beat by a team of superior baseball players, many of them are high round MLB picks. No shame in that. VU was the #2 team in the country. It's sorta akin to a team like CMU playing Michigan in football in a best of 3 series. They might steal one but everyone knows Michigan has the far better horses.
We beat #1 and that felt like David v Goliath. The exposure will almost certainly help our recruiting. Michigan will be back to the CWS soon.
The exposure will almost certainly help our recruiting.
Just like the basketball team playing in two national-championship games in 6 years helped with their recruiting?
Not to mention that as awesome as it was that this team was able to get hot in the tournament and make the championship series, the fact remains that they were one of the last four to make the tournament in the first place. And a majority of their starters are gone after this year. And it's only a matter of time before Bakich pulls a Beilein and moves on to a bigger program or the MLB. So...
1. How many NCAA coaches have jumped to the MLB in the past 10, 20, and 30 years?
2a. Are you (still) butthurt about Beilein leaving Michigan?
2b. Also, Beilein was able to capitalize to a certain extent with his recruiting. He got Wagner who came to Michigan partly because of our 2013 national runner-up finish. Obviously, we wish he would've done more. But some of the misses were Beilein's own mistakes. For instance, he did an either/or with Derrick Walton Jr. and Monte Morris when he should've taken both.
3. Finally, I'm amused by how often fans rely on the past to project the future regardless of whether the analogy or metaphor stands up to scrutiny.
Your entire post can be summed into "Beilein did X after his NC game losses so therefore Bakich will repeat X after this Championship Series loss."
Bakich is his own man meaning he has his own style and his own ambitions. For all we know, he wants to be Michigan's Red Berenson.
Well said!!
1. How many NCAA coaches have jumped to the MLB in the past 10, 20, and 30 years?
Right, because the only option for Bakich is the MLB. Not like top college programs will be throwing all the money in the world to get him. Good take.
2a. Are you (still) butthurt about Beilein leaving Michigan?
Not once have I ever said anything negative about Beilein leaving Michgian, so that's just a lie. So why lie about an innocuous post saying it is likely that the baseball coach will leave for greener pastures sooner than later?
I would argue, "pulling a Beilien" was not meant as a positive reference. Plus, you have no basis to say "it is only a matter of time" before Bakich leaves. Do you know him personally? For all you know, he loves UM and Ann Arbor and just like Hutch and the softball team plans on building a national power (despite being in a cold weather city).
1. "Right, because the only option for Bakich is the MLB."
Hey, you mentioned it and I went off what you wrote.
Btw, 2 top baseball programs (South Carolina, Stanford) have already tried to recruit Bakich and he ultimately turned them away.
2. I never accused you of saying anything negative about Beilein leaving (so lol at you accusing me of trying to put words in your mouth which I didn't).
Notice how I structured my question. I put "still" in parentheses as a qualifier.
3. Since you didn't respond to point 3, I guess I hit the nail on point 3.
Just like the basketball team playing in two national-championship games in 6 years helped with their recruiting?
With all due respect, this is a lazy take. The one thing it takes to recruit STARZ in college basketball is a willingness to openly and defiantly break the rules and pay the kids. Beilein was willing to die on the hill of never doing that. So, he automatically was out of the running for a majority of the one-and-dones I suspect people that make this argument wanted him to be pulling based on the national exposure of two championship games. It was never going to happen because it was antithetical to Beilein's ethos to do so.
And yet, in the aftermath of each championship game, people were predicting that they would help recruiting. Which means, championship games don't automatically result in an uptick in recruiting. So we shouldn't ever assume that they should.
BS. their best chance to win game #2 was tonite. we had our two big horses ready against their #3. bakich made the right call. they didn't get it done. you really think criswell would have been sharper last nite on shorter rest and allowed to go fewer innings? no way.
Thanks boys. Hell of a run! Go Blue!!!
my sentiments exactly. Great effort and a great team - just a little short. Next year!
Yes. Everybody please stay on the bandwagon. Go Blue!
It's been a fun couple of weeks following these kids! What a great job by coach Bakich and team 153. There's no shame in losing to what was clearly the better team.
Growing up being a Michigan fan from the early 70s it was great to have such a great baseball team all the time I was spoiled, it's so nice for baseball to be back again I have a feeling it's going to stay around and be a contender and make some noise, thank you coach Bakich stick around those who stay will be Champions and you are a champion in our hearts, Go Blue!
I love everything about this team and EB.
Go Blue!
https://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/cws-game-3-thread#comment-243436923
As I posted earlier on the game thread as the game ended, saying "Thank you Michigan Baseball" is just a bit more heartfelt right now, as I just five days ago lost one of my best buddies to cancer and pneumonia.
Floyd was one of the biggest Detroit Tigers fans I knew besides being a big fan of baseball in general and of everything Michigan, not to mention also the Red Wings and Lions. Even as his illnesses were getting the better of him a week ago, he was excited about this Michigan team and spoke of what they might be capable of accomplishing.
That we didn't win the championship tonight doesn't diminish the joy that the run itself brought. Thanks, Coach Bakich. Thanks, Michigan Baseball.
I jumped on the bandwagon and I am staying on. Like what softball did in '15, you did in '19.you have me now. More then just, I will watch if you are on TV, I will to a game if the weather is nice.
Incredible run. Vandy has crazy talent.
unbelievable run. bakich put them in the best position to win tonite. unfortunately, our two big dogs came up a bit short tonite. man, this team really deserved to win.
Go Blue!!!
The folks that are loving this run the most are the '62 team.
I always knew we won it in all '62, but it was just a dry statistic.
This run brought that team to life, especially the story of the Kerr family . . . Dad Kerr making the CWS, Grandpa Kerr pitching a 300+ pitch double header and winning both on the way to the championship.
Great run and way to represent the conference. The future will only be better.
I thought he should have went all out to win Game 2 and try to not even get to a Game 3 which I thought would favor Vandy. They actually were more competitive against their ace in Game 2.
We came very close to not even having this nice little run, which has been overall enjoyable and fun despite tonight's result. It would have been nice to see Michigan do something it had not done in close to 60 years in baseball, but I liked being along for the ride on this one.
As a long-time Boston Red Sox fan who suffered from the mid-1950s until the last out of the 2004 Major League Baseball World Series, I feel your pain, but then I also consider that Michigan baseball just enjoyed a remarkable five-week run.
In the two weeks between May 8 and May 22, Michigan's baseball team was 3-6, including a win over an Eastern Michigan team that finished 9-43-1, and the Wolverines were one strike and one out away from missing the NCAA tournament. They barely got into the NCAA Tournament as one of the last four teams selected.
From May 23 through the final game of the NCAA Tournament, while each game became an elimination game, Michigan's baseball team was 12-5, with three of those losses coming against the top two teams in the country, UCLA and Vanderbilt. They might not have been the victors, but HAIL to Michigan Baseball Team 153!
It was just some great baseball to watch! Good fundamentals, a lot of heart, energy, and charisma. Thanks Blue and Bakich Baseball.
The baseball team has been a lot of fun to watch. Congratulations on an amazing post season run!
I blame Brian. Baseball was doing fine until MGoBlog started writing about it! Jinxed.Baseball should be like Fight Club for MGoBlog.
Speaking of jinxes. This was bad at the time. It looks absurd now.