its long, so you have been warned.
with all our storied history in baseball, the all americans, the mlb pedigree, the huge attendance numbers....we still seem unable to get over the hump mentally. lsu is an outstanding squad, and are typically, and this weekends poor showing isnt necessarily the crux of my argument, but we have really squandered a great bit in our inability to produce championship teams.
you look at sec baseball and you think lsu (1), south carolina (2), and mississippi state (3)....at least i do from an unbiased perspective. last season gave me some serious hope regarding our prospects for a title, but as i reflect over our whole past, its astounding how much our program has squandered when you consider the talent, history, and tradition we have.
on one hand, you look at a comparable baseball program in south carolina....who on their 9th and 10th trips to the cws, won their two titles....we played for one on our 9th, but came up short. then, i look at the team we brought last season and think that we really overachieved and played well above our talent level...yet the frustration remains....with our overall inability to get over the proverbial hump and establish ourselves as a dominant team even in our division.
i try to remind myself that lsu got swept on the road just last week to a florida team that seems to be somewhat inconsistent...and this is an extremely tough league. that said, the disappointment of this weekend just makes it that much more painful. we still seem to be trying to figure things our (not just as a lineup, but as a program as a whole) and in the meantime, our built-in competitive advantage of a wonderful history, great traditions, etc is diminishing as the rest of the sec continues to wake up and close the gap in sec baseball.
we havent produced a sec title since 1989....NINETEEN FREAKING EIGHTY NINE. its been TWENTY FOUR FREAKING YEARS since our last regular season title. that is not acceptable. now, the reality of the situation is that we are in the midst of a fragile rebuild of the devastation of polk II. im a realist, but when you look at the grand scheme of things, how committed to winning are we really?
we wont even make a solid commitment to giving our players the best stadium in the sec....in a sport where we cherish success more than most sec schools. we have to be 100% committed to doing whatever it takes....a singular relentless focus on becoming and maintaining an elite level. right now, it pains me to say we are half-assing the things we do regarding our baseball squad.
now, juxtapose that with this weekend. lsu is dangerous, but reeling from a 1-3 week. it seemed from the beginning, we succumbed to mental weakness and we showed fear. they beat us before we even stepped out on the diamond, and have done so for quite some time now. lsu has a swagger that we lack...a confidence that comes from being there, and its apparent that we lack that killer instinct. sure, we can complain about ****** umpire calls (and you wouldnt be wrong in doing so), but the fact of the matter is, we had some really poor at-bats and i think its a mental problem.
nobody gives a **** about our former all americans, or attendance records, or number of first rounders. we need to harden between the ears and become the program we are destined to be before our chance slips past us. we are still riding the wave of our past success and not seizing current opportunity by the reigns. nobody is going to lay down for us and we are going to have to earn things the hard, gut-wrenching way, just like everybody else. we, as fans, are going to have to turn a corner because living in the past is killing our opportunity for the future. that starts in dedicating ourselves to being elite again, playing with swagger, and reinvesting in the success of our current teams instead of sitting on our asses waiting on the huge numbers before we commit to building the park that we deserve. floundering at .500 baseball does not command respect amongst our peers. we have to bridge the gap between where we are and where we want to be in some way and we need to get busy doing it.
so i ask you, regardless of what you think about my above rant, how committed are we to winning? where are areas the administration, coaches, and fans need to improve? how can we find that ultimate success and what will it take? we should no longer be satisfied with the status quo. we need to become more like lsu baseball and uk basketball. if we close the disconnect between where we think we are and where we actually are in the grand scheme of things, i think we can achieve that, but its not going to be easy. i think we have the coach to do it, but we have to get some damn hitters. this small-ball is only effective against marginal-to-poor pitching. when you face quality pitching, you are going to have to earn it and it is apparent we fall substantially short in that area.
i have kinda gone buckshot all over the place, so forgive the rant, but our commitment, mental approach, feeling of entitlement, and general lack of performance in the clutch have been bothering me and i wanted to bring a general discussion on what to fix and how to fix it. to me, it boils down to commitment, and we are getting outpaced by teams we see as peers in that regard.
with all our storied history in baseball, the all americans, the mlb pedigree, the huge attendance numbers....we still seem unable to get over the hump mentally. lsu is an outstanding squad, and are typically, and this weekends poor showing isnt necessarily the crux of my argument, but we have really squandered a great bit in our inability to produce championship teams.
you look at sec baseball and you think lsu (1), south carolina (2), and mississippi state (3)....at least i do from an unbiased perspective. last season gave me some serious hope regarding our prospects for a title, but as i reflect over our whole past, its astounding how much our program has squandered when you consider the talent, history, and tradition we have.
on one hand, you look at a comparable baseball program in south carolina....who on their 9th and 10th trips to the cws, won their two titles....we played for one on our 9th, but came up short. then, i look at the team we brought last season and think that we really overachieved and played well above our talent level...yet the frustration remains....with our overall inability to get over the proverbial hump and establish ourselves as a dominant team even in our division.
i try to remind myself that lsu got swept on the road just last week to a florida team that seems to be somewhat inconsistent...and this is an extremely tough league. that said, the disappointment of this weekend just makes it that much more painful. we still seem to be trying to figure things our (not just as a lineup, but as a program as a whole) and in the meantime, our built-in competitive advantage of a wonderful history, great traditions, etc is diminishing as the rest of the sec continues to wake up and close the gap in sec baseball.
we havent produced a sec title since 1989....NINETEEN FREAKING EIGHTY NINE. its been TWENTY FOUR FREAKING YEARS since our last regular season title. that is not acceptable. now, the reality of the situation is that we are in the midst of a fragile rebuild of the devastation of polk II. im a realist, but when you look at the grand scheme of things, how committed to winning are we really?
we wont even make a solid commitment to giving our players the best stadium in the sec....in a sport where we cherish success more than most sec schools. we have to be 100% committed to doing whatever it takes....a singular relentless focus on becoming and maintaining an elite level. right now, it pains me to say we are half-assing the things we do regarding our baseball squad.
now, juxtapose that with this weekend. lsu is dangerous, but reeling from a 1-3 week. it seemed from the beginning, we succumbed to mental weakness and we showed fear. they beat us before we even stepped out on the diamond, and have done so for quite some time now. lsu has a swagger that we lack...a confidence that comes from being there, and its apparent that we lack that killer instinct. sure, we can complain about ****** umpire calls (and you wouldnt be wrong in doing so), but the fact of the matter is, we had some really poor at-bats and i think its a mental problem.
nobody gives a **** about our former all americans, or attendance records, or number of first rounders. we need to harden between the ears and become the program we are destined to be before our chance slips past us. we are still riding the wave of our past success and not seizing current opportunity by the reigns. nobody is going to lay down for us and we are going to have to earn things the hard, gut-wrenching way, just like everybody else. we, as fans, are going to have to turn a corner because living in the past is killing our opportunity for the future. that starts in dedicating ourselves to being elite again, playing with swagger, and reinvesting in the success of our current teams instead of sitting on our asses waiting on the huge numbers before we commit to building the park that we deserve. floundering at .500 baseball does not command respect amongst our peers. we have to bridge the gap between where we are and where we want to be in some way and we need to get busy doing it.
so i ask you, regardless of what you think about my above rant, how committed are we to winning? where are areas the administration, coaches, and fans need to improve? how can we find that ultimate success and what will it take? we should no longer be satisfied with the status quo. we need to become more like lsu baseball and uk basketball. if we close the disconnect between where we think we are and where we actually are in the grand scheme of things, i think we can achieve that, but its not going to be easy. i think we have the coach to do it, but we have to get some damn hitters. this small-ball is only effective against marginal-to-poor pitching. when you face quality pitching, you are going to have to earn it and it is apparent we fall substantially short in that area.
i have kinda gone buckshot all over the place, so forgive the rant, but our commitment, mental approach, feeling of entitlement, and general lack of performance in the clutch have been bothering me and i wanted to bring a general discussion on what to fix and how to fix it. to me, it boils down to commitment, and we are getting outpaced by teams we see as peers in that regard.
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