As our own Matt Monte discussed yesterday, the 2015 College World Series field has been set. On Monday the committee unveiled the 64 team field, dividing the teams into 16, four team regionals, with the top 16 seeds set to host the opening round. Most experts agree that the committee did a good job, selecting the teams that most deserved to play in the postseason.
The committee may have chosen the correct 64 team, but it seems certain that they didn’t consider geography when assigning individual teams to individual regional sites. By the time the first pitch is thrown at noon on Friday, some programs will have had to cross the country to reach their destination. While it’s normal for a few teams to have lengthy journeys, in 2015 the committee went overboard. Seventeen teams will have to fly to their regional site, with 15 of those teams traveling a thousand miles or more from campus.
Frequent Flyer Miles
Maryland drew the shortest travel stick, or longest depending on how you look at it. The third seeded Terps will have to fly cross country and in doing so; will cover 2654 miles to reach their regional destination of Los Angeles. Friday evening Maryland will face the second seeded and 2014 CWS participant Ole Miss Rebels. The Rebels will only have to travel a mere 1891 miles from Oxford, MS to reach Jackie Robinson Filed. Of the 16 sites, seven sites will have multiple teams flying in, with an additional four sites having at least one team needing to take an airplane.
The remaining five sites are all filled with participants who are within 500 miles of the host site, allowing each of the teams to bus in. The Houston Regional, which is composed of Houston, Rice, Houston Baptist and UL Lafayette, has three teams who call the city of Houston home. The Ragin’ Cajuns have the longest trip in the regional, a four hour, 219 mile trip from Lafayette to Houston. Other teams around the country like Lipscomb and FIU are playing at regionals in the same cities they share with host. Lipscomb will make the three mile trip to Vanderbilt, while FIU is just eight miles away from Miami.
So what’s the big deal? I mean the NCAA will reimburse each university for travel coast and lodging. Ah, if only it were that easy.
Packing The Bus
The first logistical nightmare 17 teams will face is finding a flight. Most of these teams will travel with a party of 35 to 40 people. There is the 25 man roster, coaching staff, which is usually made up of at least three or four coaches, and finally support staff. The support staff will consist of another three to four personnel on a normal weekend, but for the NCAA tournament, that number may double to six or seven. Unlike football and even some basketball teams, baseball teams have no room in the budget for a chartered flight. That’s right, these guys fly commercial just like you and me, and trying to find 40 seats one on flight within one week of departure isn’t the easiest task in the world.
Once step one is complete, the next hurdle teams must clear is packing. You’re flying remember, there are weight and size restrictions. So what how much gear and equipment does it take to supply a college baseball team for a weekend at the NCAA Regionals? A lot. There are the obvious essentials like a glove, bat, helmet and uniform. But then there are all the extra supplies that are needed. Snacks and drinks for the hotel, cage balls, fungos, spare pants, medical and training supplies, the list goes on and on. It becomes a challenge for the support personnel to figure out how to make sure every thing that is needed on site is available for the players to use.
Okay, so we’ve got steps one and two taken care of, now it’s time to fly. Right, but first the team must get to the airport. A number of these schools will have to travel as far as several hours just to reach an airport big enough to handle 40 people on one flight. Load up the bus! Then there is the act of getting through security and finally seated. Once the team has landed, (hopefully on a direct flight), they must wait and hope that all the bags made it. After all bags are collected, it’s time to jump on another bus and head for the hotel.
No matter how you travel, it usually ends up being a chore at some point. The lengthy journeys many of these team face will be just the first obstacle they will have to navigate as they each try to survive and advance to the Supers. While all of this trouble is worth it for these 17 teams, hopefully next year the selection committee will find a way to keep more regionals….well, regional.
To see how far each team must travel, check out the table below.
Feature image via Anthony92931/Wikimedia Commons
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