Next stop, College World Series: The LSU baseball team left today for Omaha, Neb., taking their 10-game winning streak to the College World Series. While the surge would indicate LSU is peaking at the right time, some players say that’s not so. The Tigers’ pitching has been good, but they’re hitting inconsistently, forcing LSU to pull out some come-from-behind nail-biters during the stretch. Now they hope to put it all together in a bid for the Tigers’ sixth national title. LSU’s CWS opener against Virginia will start at 6 p.m. Saturday and will be televised by ESPN.
An inexact science: A recent Wall Street Journal analysis of college baseball programs found that since 1996 Miami has sent the best hitters to the big leagues, while Southern Cal has done the best job of turning out professional pitchers. But former LSU baseball coach and athletic director Skip Bertman says the Major League Baseball draft is an inexact science. “Baseball is the hardest sport to prognosticate,” Bertman told the newspaper. “In football, I watch the scouts come in and run seven or eight tests for each kid—vertical jump, bench press, 40-yard dash—and when you put all those scores together, you know their athleticism. In baseball, you don’t have to have a 40-inch vertical; you don’t even have to run real fast. But you do have to be real smart and know how to deal with failure.” The Journal’s analysis seems to back Bertman’s comments. Albert Pujols of little-known Maple Woods (Mo.) Community College was the 402nd player taken in the 1999 draft. Pujols has won two MVP awards and become a superstar with the St. Louis Cardinals. At the same time, half the players taken in the first round of the 1999 draft have yet to reach the major leagues. Read the Journal story here.
