What Big 12 Conference baseball needs is another Ulysses S. Grant. The general, not the president.
The South, as usual, is winning the war on Big 12 diamonds. In fact, the disparity between the two geographic and, perhaps more important, climactic regions has reached the inevitable schism.
With three weekends remaining in the regular season, the six Big 12 baseball teams in Texas and Oklahoma are inhabiting the upper division of league standings.
Meanwhile, the four northern schools still participating in the sport — Colorado took a called third strike years ago, and Iowa State whiffed after the 2001 season — are the bottom four.
Yes, even Nebraska, with its massive resources and its state-of-the art stadium just off campus near trendy Haymarket Square, is merely so-so this year. But at least the Cornhuskers (9-9) don’t have a losing record.
Missouri, despite winning a surprising two of three from Texas over the weekend, is bogged down with a 6-11 league record. Still, the Tigers seem likely to earn the eighth and final berth in the Big 12 tournament. That leaves the Sunflower State schools locked in a tepid battle to avoid the league basement.
Kansas State climbed out of the cellar Sunday with a 4-2 triumph over Baylor. The Wildcats (3-15) now have a half-game lead over Kansas (2-15). The Jayhawks, whose pitchers threw cantaloupes to wide-eyed Texas Tech batters over the weekend, have lost eight straight in the conference and must go to, gulp, Texas this weekend.
If there is such a thing as the sophomore jinx in coaching, second-year KU boss Ritch Price must be the leading candidate. Last year, the Jayhawks compiled a 9-18 league record — not great, but good enough to earn that eighth slot in the tournament and infuse needed life into a morose program.
Now Kansas has taken a giant step backward. The Jayhawks have been woefully overmatched when they have stepped into the conference. In all games, Kansas has a lusty .319 team batting average and the team earned run average is 5.55. But in the 17 league games, KU is hitting only .263 and the team ERA is an unsightly (some might say ungodly) 8.35.
The gulf between the Big 12 Conference north and south isn’t quite as gaping in men’s track, thanks to Nebraska, which won last weekend’s Big 12 outdoor meet in Norman, Okla., and Kansas State, which finished fifth in team standings. But the other four upper division finishers — Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Texas and Baylor — were from the south.
Colorado, Missouri and Kansas brought up the rear respectively in the league outdoor track meet.
Kansas had finished last in the outdoor championships before. The Jayhawks trailed the field in the first league meet back in 1997, but check out the point totals. The ’97 KU men’s team compiled 28 points while this year’s team collected only six points. That’s right. A mere half-dozen points — the fewest ever scored by a men’s team in the eight Big 12 outdoor championships.
Granted, super sprinter Leo Bookman, the Jayhawks’ best trackman, is sitting out the outdoor season in order to concentrate on training for the Olympics Trials, but six points??? That’s embarrassing. The KU women, incidentally, weren’t much better, scoring 38 points and finishing 10th.
Ah, for the return of the glory days of Bill Easton and Bob Timmons — the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, when Kansas was a major player on the conference level and often a contender on the national scene. Since then, the Jayhawks have been mostly water-treaders and sinkers in track.
All in all, with a new proactive regime stressing production and accountability now firmly ensconced on Mount Oread, fourth-year track coach Stanley Redwine may be walking on eggshells.
