It is really amazing..we have 3 pitchers...

[8dog]

that's it, 3. We literally cannot put anyone in there other than Whitney, Routt and Moore and expect to get even 3 outs out of them.

 

[ScoobaDawg]

If baseball AND football put an ad in the Reflector at the same time do we get a discount..

 

[Phil Wenneck.sixpack]

How is it humanly possible to suck in all phases of pitching? They are like a walking talking accident waiting to happen. It doesn't help when this star studded cast of hitters gets shutdown by one of their midweek guys. This team makes me sick and aside from the 3 pitchers you mentioned, the rest of the team needs to be shown Hwy 12, 82, 45, or 25 as soon as this season is put out of it's misery.</p>

 

[Todd4State]

when you get a reputation of abusing arms (Thanks Russ McNickle). The baseball community is fairly small, and a lot of people know each other or at least of each other. And yes, recruiting exclusively out of the camp was a bad idea, but you're not going to get anyone good to come to the camp if people think that you're going to ruin their chances of playing pro ball. And word gets around pretty quickly. Especially when you piss off someone like Charlie Lea who has a lot of cred since he pitched in the big leagues successfully.

As a result, you get guys that are just happy to get a college scholarship, and of course they're usually marginal guys. And some of the decent pitching prospects that we had gotten before Cohen were guys like Forrest Moore and Devin Jones who grew up State fans and would have gone to State even if Gene Swindoll was the pitching coach. Hell, I'm not so sure that even he wouldn't have been better than McNickle.

For example, I was talking to a player's parent during a game earlier this year and was asking them about the coaching change and all that. What the parent told me was that all their son wanted to do was play for a coaching legend. That's almost word for word. Now, that's all fine and good, but to win Championships you have to have players that want to come to your school to win a championship and then go play in the Big Leagues.

 

[Phil Wenneck.sixpack]

went to the camp because they came from State families to begin with. Our camp isn't the same as it was 15 or even 10 years ago and alot of that has to do with not only coaching but as bad as we don't want to admit it, the success of Bianco at Ole Miss. The margin for error got a little smaller when kids realized they had another instate possibility and it's left us with what you mentioned....a bunch of guys who were State fans anyway and are just happy to have a scholarship. Florida has historically been very good to us in terms of recruiting but now we have very few players from that state. Polk fell asleep at the recuiting wheel years ago but his poor judgement in who he chose as assistants during his 2nd State tenure is also very much to blame.

 

[Todd4State]

I think we would have gotten some of those players that Ole Miss had if we had just evaluated talent better.

I'm a huge State fan, and State baseball fan. But if I was a baseball player, and MSU is telling me to go to JUCO and then walk-on and Ole Miss is offering me a scholarship, it's going to be hard for me to justify turning that down. And some of these players probably weren't as big of State fans as I am, which would make it an even easier decision for them.

I often wonder what you had to do to get a scholarship from State. I think the channels went something like this:

1. Go to the camp. Beaten to death.

2. You have to promise not to sign with a MLB team out of high school. The only reason we might get an Ed Easley type player was for him to promise not to sign with a team. I have heard that Polk was tired of losing players to the draft, so he started recruiting guys either like Easley who promised to not sign no matter what, or guys that weren't going to get drafted. You can imagine how that turned out.

3. You have to play a position that was available. You're a SS? Sorry, we promised Bunky will be the SS. You're a 1B? Sorry, we promised Brad Jones.

4. Not be from a lottery state. Look at how many guys we have on the roster from Georgia, Louisiana, and Tennessee. I think Polk stopped recruiting those areas because he would look like a hypocrite and kind of prove himself wrong if he was able to recruit successfully there.

5. Be willing to let Polk use you. What am I talking about here? Polk really did want to grow the game of baseball. He is noted to have helped people like USM with their baseball program. What's one of the best ways to grow the Mississippi JUCO system? How about send some of your Fr. and So. players to the JUCO's? And then those players in turn get more playing time. OK, stay with me here- here's what I think would happen to a lot of people. Let's take Grant Hogue as an example. Grant Hogue goes to the camp, looks like a pretty good player, and tells the coaches that he really wants to come to MSU, and has been a State fan all his life, and it's his dream to play there. Polk starts thinking- "This guy will be willing to do my bidding". Polk and Raffo then sit down with Grant and tell him that "They really like him, but he needs to go to a JUCO for two years to get some more experience and then come back in two years." Hogue does this, and then two years later, Polk and Raffo say that he can walk-on, which saves them a scholarship. Hogue does this, RS, and actually turns out is good enough to start for two years. Now most people end up getting offered a scholarship to Ole Miss and USM, and they just go that route. But I think Hogue is the "perfect Polk success story" if he had his druthers.

6. Have a minimum 3.0 GPA, an Eagle Scout- hey, we can't hit, but we tie some knots and cook peach cobbler!, be an FCA member, and perfect Sunday School attendance.