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  1. #1
    Senior Member
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    Feb 2009
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    715

    Will NCAA baseballs be changed?

    The current print issue of "Baseball America" has an article describing the effort by Clemson baseball coach Jack Leggett to get the NCAA to adopt a livelier baseball. Leggett feels switching to balls with minor-league manufacturing specs would do the trick, and help balance out the reduced offense brought on by the "deader" NCAA bats that came in 2011.

    I think Leggett has a good point. I like the move toward small ball that came with the new bats; but too many OF flies are easily caught now in college games. A better balance might be achieved with a slightly livelier ball, if it makes more OF hits fall in. Anyway, nothing will be changed this year: but it shows that all baseballs aren't alike when they leave the factory!

  2. #2
    Senior Member
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    Feb 2009
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    715

    Re: Will NCAA baseballs be changed?

    Shortly after I started this thread, I saw that the University of South Carolina was having a guest lecturer on the physics of baseball. I walked to the lecture, given by a nuclear physicist, Alan Nathan, of the U. of Illinois. At the end of the lecture, I asked about the proposed change in NCAA baseballs, and the related question of whether the seams on NCAA baseballs should be lower to correspond to pro balls.

    Ray Tanner, who's considered one of the top college baseball coaches in the US with two national championships, two national runner-ups, and a national number three among his achievments, was in the audience. (He's now the Athletic Director.) He commented to the effect that the change in seams is a factor in the transition pitchers face in going from the colleges to the pro's. Dr. Nathan suggested that he might be interested in more research on the effects, including the flight of the batted ball, of the difference in the height of seams on the balls between college and pro's.

  3. #3
    Senior Member xpress34's Avatar
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    Sep 2008
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    2,610

    Re: Will NCAA baseballs be changed?

    I'd be all for the NCAA going to at least MiLB spec balls - IF the NCAA also gets rid of Aluminum Bats and goes to wood.

    If you want balls at MiLB spec, then the bats should be the same. It would not only completely level the playing field, it would also show more 'true' talent of players aspiring to be drafted into the MLB.

    Just my .02

    - Smitty

 

 

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