http://www.gatorsports.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070404/GATORS04/704040368
Last night, our baseball team (19-13) decided to bring the A game and absolutely pounded FSU (29-3) with a score of 16-7.
"The game was played before an overflow crowd of 12,280 at the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville - the largest crowd to watch a college baseball game in this state's history. The mark shattered the previous record of 8,277 set by Miami on Feb. 9, 1996 against Texas" (Zimmerman, 2007)
The issue I wanted to bring up was the playing of rivalry games at neutral sites. I bet some players would rather play all the UF-FSU baseball games at this stadium because it would draw so many fans. Others might want to continue to play the home and home series because those are our most electric atmospheres of the season at our stadium.
My opinions on neutral sites is that the site should be about an even distance of each school so the fans have a fair chance of filling the stadium. The UF/UGA football game is probably unfair because we have to drive less than 2 hours and they have to drive 6. To their credit, they always fill their part of the stadium. In baseball game, I wonder if the fans of FSU traveled the 4 hours compared to our 2. If we dominated the fan base, this wouldnt be a good site for future games. There are pros and cons to neutral sited games, but then who's to decide which rivalries get that option? Should we meet Tennessee half way next year and play in a random stadium? Just seems odd. Thoughts?
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4 comments:
This is an interesting topic that you bring up. Obviously you mentioned the UF/UGA in Jacksonville, which is the first thing that came to my mind when discussing this topic. I think part of playing sports is having to play on each others "turf."
With baseball, teams usually play 2 series against the same team in their conference (1 home and 1 away). Football is different in the aspect that you play at home one year and away the next against conference teams.
As far as fans traveling 4 hours to see a regular season baseball game during the week...I just don't see teams bringing in that many fans. I think it would take a regional series or something of the sort to make fans travel that far. Football is different because of the amount of games they play. This is why people tend to travel more for football games rather than a baseball game.
Personally, I love having the home field advantage, but beating a rival on their own field is so sweet. It's part of the game. And no...we should not meet Tennessee half way...Knoxville is so much more fun when we come there and beat up on them.
I completely agree with the distance of "neutral" sites to home schools. Personally, I have always felt that the UF vs FSU game should be at a neutral site as opposed to FL vs GA. The FL/GA game has grown to be such a large event that the game will never be played in Athens or Gainesville as long as we shall live. What's the history behind the Jax site anyway?
Back to UF vs FSU, I think it's the greatest rivalry in all of sports. I may get some criticisms about that, but all I can remember is growing up and remembering the national implications the UF/FSU game had. Anyway, I believe it is only fair that neutral sites be equidistant between both schools. Though I am always shocked at how many Jacksonville residents are UGA fans, I personally look at that game as a home game.
With the exception of the booster's who may live in the Jacksonville area, I do not see many of the Seminole baseball faithful driving from their part of the panhandle all the way to Jacksonville for a baseball series. Jacksonville isn't a huge touristy place so there is no reason besides the game to draw fans to the city. I don't think the neutral site for that game made much sense, especially in the middle of the week.
Playing more neutral sites game is a terrible idea. The whole point of the annual, neutral site game is that it's special and out-of-the-ordinary. Plus, not all the fans who get tickets to your home games can get tickets to neutral site games. The Swamp seats somewhere around 88,000; Alltel Stadium seats about 60,000, half of which, at the most, would go to gator fans. That leaves you with 50,000+ who don't get to watch the Gators play one of their biggest rivals in person. Why would you even bother buying season tickets if the team will be playing all of their best games in other places? Hopefully, this neutral site phenomenon stays small and unique.
Oh yea, and Julie Foudy will whoop you.
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