For so long, questioning anything to do with the Left Field Lounge would be seen as heresy. But over the last few years a few things have happened that have caused MSU baseball fans to wonder if changes need to be made to improve the atmosphere at Dudy Noble.

Perhaps the first thing was LSU building arguably the best college baseball stadium in the country. Now, they are crushing everyone in attendance, averaging over 10K per game. Another thing is Ole Miss’ atmosphere being considered better than State’s – and their attendance is higher. And after three straight losing seasons from ’08-’10, it’s doesn’t seem as though things haven’t gotten back to what we were used to before the fall.

So what can be done to improve things? It’s not like attendance is bad – MSU is still in the top 10 around the country – but we’ve always been on top, so how do we get back?

I’ll go ahead and tell you, I haven’t been able to attend a game this year. I live two states away and it just hasn’t happened for one reason or another. But I went to State for five years – graduating in 2007 – and I attended at least 15-20 games per year while I was in school. And I’ve been back a few times since.

The left field lounge is the crux of the problem. The main reason is because it seems like an exclusive club. Visitors (broadcasters) always rave about how nice everyone is, offering food to them and the outfielders. That is true, and I think the fans who have a set up out there are very willing to include most visitors. But the average person certainly isn’t going to walk onto someone’s truck/trailer/deck/porch asking for food and joining the conversation without previous acquaintance.

While I was in school, there were several times when I went with someone who knew someone out there, or I was invited by a classmate, etc. so I joined the party a few times. But I didn’t have any close friends out there so I didn’t feel like I should crash their party every game just because I had one conversation with them in Psychology class. All this to say I understand how many folks can feel left out.

I also think the left field lounge crowd should be able to keep what they have because a lot of them are loyal fans who show up every week to grill out and watch the game. Plus it’s an awesome tradition and one that makes Dudy Noble extremely unique. To determine who gets to have these spots, I might suggest a point system. Let’s say you have to donate $500 to the baseball program and you get 100 points. Then, for every game you (or someone else) is not at your lounge spot, 5 points is deducted. If you slip below 50 points in one year or your three year average is less than 75 points then you are not eligible to renew your spot the next year.

What I might suggest is creating the same area in right field just for the students. I know when I was in college and I went to the “left field lounge”, it was really in right field because that’s where the students were. But most of those contraptions were owned by specific fraternities. If you weren’t in the frat, or knew someone who was going to be out there – out of luck. They should take my proposed $500 donated by each member of the left field lounge crowd to build an area for students to enjoy….first come first serve.

The next thing would be the bleachers/chair backs. It’s pretty silly for folks to have to sit in the bleachers when the chairbacks are 30% full. Especially when there are so many bleacher seats that are bad seats. Not only can you not see, but you are uncomfortable as you roast in the sun. My first suggestion would be to let fans go to the chair-backs sooner – maybe after the 1st inning. If a ticket-holder arrives late, then you just have to move. But most of the time they don’t show up so it wouldn’t matter.

If that won’t work, how about a ticket exchange? With all the technology we have, how can we not set up a system to where – up to 10 minutes before the game starts – season ticket holders can notify the ticket office that they will not be attending the game, and a walk-up fan may purchase the ticket. Let’s say that a particular season-ticket holder paid $15 for that seat, then sell it to a walk-up for $15. And as a fee for handling the transaction, the MSU athletic department can keep $5 and give $10 back to the season-ticket holder.

I don’t think people need to be louder or anything – it’s baseball. Just need the numbers. The more people that show up the more exciting it is. Some of it is winning, but it wouldn’t hurt to include some changes to the current set up. It’s not really a huge problem, but as always – just looking to improve.

@mandwnation

An idea I had for a new billboard after last weekend’s NFL Draft….

The Dawgs were able to beat Ole Miss 4-2 on Sunday. That gives them the series win and MSU has now won 5 of 6 in SEC play….from 5-10 to 10-11. State is now 27-17 on the year.

EAST

Kentucky, 14-7
South Carolina, 14-7
Florida, 12-9
Georgia, 9-12
Vanderbilt, 9-12
Tennessee, 7-14

WEST

LSU, 14-7
Arkansas, 11-10
Mississippi State, 10-11
Auburn, 10-11
Ole Miss, 10-11
Alabama, 6-15

State was swept by South Carolina, but they are sweeping everyone right now. They were 1-5, but have won 13 of 15 since. Next up: at Alabama.

Oh yeah, this is OUR STATE!

Fletcher Cox was the biggest splash for Mississippi State, garnering the 12th overall selection of the 2012 draft to the Philadelphia Eagles.

Vick Ballard was the last pick of the 5th round, going to the Indianapolis Colts. Their running back, Joseph Addai, was released in March after a sub-par year.

Charles Mitchell was drafted in the 6th round by the Atlanta Falcons. The Falcons are pretty thin at safety, so he will have a chance to play – at least providing depth and playing special teams.

Quentin Saulsberry and James Carmon were not drafted, but Saulsberry signed with the Minnesota Vikings and Carmon with the Baltimore Ravens.

Addison Lawrence may end up with the Seattle Seahawks and Brandon Maye will probably land somewhere.

The final tally on SEC players drafted by school: Bama 8, UGA 7, USC 6, LSU 5, UPig 4, MSU 3, Florida 2, UK 2, Vandy 2, Auburn 1, UT 1, Bears 1. Sixth in the best conference in the land…not too shabby.

Chris Stratton pitched another wonderful game last night to beat Ole Miss 4-0 in Game 1 of the series. It was a complete game shutout on only 104 pitches. He only gave up five hits all night and outside Alex Yarbrough the Bears were 2 for 25. Stratton only faced four batters more than the minimum!

Strat is now 8-0 with a 2.39 E.R.A., at the rate he’s going it will be below 2.0 before long. In a game between two really good pitchers, Stratton delivered; and now State has won five in a row.

After relatively average freshman and sophomore years (10-10, 5.2+ E.R.A.), Stratton has emerged as a top tier pitcher – for anyone. He is likely to be a first round draft pick in June. I think he is a lot like John Smoltz (I’m not saying he’ll eventually be a Hall of Famer) – they are the same height, and once Chris puts on the weight he will be throwing mid-90s like Smoltzy.

MSU is coming on strong now, but where would this team be if it weren’t for Stratton holding it together?

He started the year in relief. Ben Bracewell was the Friday night starter with Stratton coming in for him, but he was injured before SEC play started. So Chris Stratton got things kicked off against LSU striking out 17 in 8 2/3 innings before handing it over to Caleb Reed, but State couldn’t win in extra innings. After that great performance, he should have been 5-0, but he wasn’t.

Strat’s 5th win came against Arkansas the next weekend. He beat Auburn the next weekend, then Vanderbilt the next. Against South Carolina he passed off a 6-4 8th inning lead to Reed but the Dawgs lost the game. Vs. Tennessee he went nine innings only giving up one run – but the offense only scored one run as well so MSU had to win it in extra innings. Then last night he dominates TSUN. He’s 8-0, but he could just as easily be 11-0. Wow.

Out of State’s nine SEC wins, Stratton was the starting pitcher in five of them. And like I said, he should have won all seven games he’s started. MSU has won half the games Kendall Graveman has started, but only 1 of 6 in the Nick Routt/Evan Mitchell/Johnny Bullpen days. So the Dawgs are only winning 33% of the SEC games Stratton doesn’t start. Therefore, I can only conclude that they would be 6-13 or 7-12 right now without him. What’s more, he was 4-0 in the non-conference, pitching long relief for Bracewell, so you might have to take a couple of overall wins away too. With that kind of record, we’d be staring at no regional for sure.

Chris Stratton is becoming a great pitcher. If you haven’t been watching, it’s time to start. With a guy like that on our side, anything is possible come postseason play.

Rick Ray was able to sign two players this week for the upcoming recruiting class: PG Jacoby Davis out of Delafield, Wisconsin and PG Andre Applewhite out of Memphis, Tennessee.

I’ll let our friends at For Whom the Cowbell Tolls tell you more about these guys:

Jacoby Davis

Andre Applewhite

This weekend is huge for baseball in Mississippi as MSU and Ole Miss lock horns once again in SEC regular season play this weekend in Starkville, MS.  Both teams contrast each other, and what we have is a classic baseball duel of good pitching (MSU) vs. good hitting (Ole Miss).

The last time these two teams played each other in Peal, MS, MSU struck out 16 times and looked extremely uncomfortable and lacking in confidence.  MSU was also coming off of a sweep at the hands of South Carolina at the time. Since the Governor’s Cup, MSU is now on a four game winning streak after sweeping Tennessee during Super Bulldog Weekend, and then beating USM in Pearl- a game which featured two long MSU home runs by Mitch Slauter and Hunter Renfroe.

The key for MSU is to pitch well and play good defense.  That’s our bread and butter- and had we played good defense against Ole Miss in the fourth inning of the Governor’s Cup, we probably win that game even with the 16 strike outs.  Unfortunately, you can’t take a mulligan in baseball.  But, what we can do is learn from that game and move forward.

And with a team that is inexperienced, that’s what has happened to our hitters a lot this year- learning from bad at bats, as well as the successful at bats that we’ve had.  The hitting has been addressed by coach John Cohen, who basically wants the team to his the ball back through the middle and try to keep the barrel in the strike zone a little bit longer.  If it were me coaching- I would basically tell the team to try to hit line drives and try not to do too much.  After all, it was Yogi Berra who said- “How the hell are you going to hit and think at the same time?”  The message there- simplify.

The reason that this series is big for MSU aside from the obvious bragging rights is we need wins over RPI top 50 teams.  So, winning this series would be a nice notch in our belt as far as postseason play.  After this series, we will have opportunities against Florida and Kentucky to get top 50 wins as well.  But, the more that we can get the better.

And now for some baseball recruiting news:  Cort Brinson, a catcher/first baseman/outfielder from Oak Grove High School in Hattiesburg will be walking on to MSU in the fall.  He will be an academic walk-on, and he is one of the top power hitters in the state this spring.  As of now- his team is in the playoffs- he has 8 home runs and is hitting .485.  Cort was named Dandy Dozen prior to this season by the Clarion-Ledger and he represented Mississippi in the prestigious National Power Showcase in Arizona.  Perfect Game has named MSU signee John Marc Shelly the top prospect in Tennessee, so congratulations to him. Shelly will likely be our closer in the very near future and has topped out at 95 MPH on his fastball.

Until next time- Hail State!

Today is a great day to live vicariously through Fletcher Cox. He will be in New York City tonight for the 1st round of the NFL Draft, and he is predicted by many to be a top 10 pick.

I’ll go ahead and say congratulations to him and his family on the millions of dollars he is about to make. And I hope Mr. Cox has a long career in the NFL with many appearances on TV telling folks where he went to college.

Scott Stricklin outfitted Fletcher with a cowbell for tonight’s festivities. A chrome one was requested, but I guess we’ll have to wait until tonight to find out if that is what he’ll be ringing. And I hope he is ringing!

I also hope, when his name is called, Roger Goodell says “Mississippi State” and not “Mississippi”. Go get ‘em Fletcher, Hail State!

These days folks want results as quickly as possible. I don’t discount myself in that group, so sometimes I try to step back to gain perspective. After Dan Mullen brought MSU to a somewhat surprising 9-4 record in 2010, most State fans where looking to at least equal that in 2011. It didn’t happen. Still, 7-6 will do for now…as long as we do better in 2012, right?

When the schedules came out in late December, everyone looked at the first seven games as winnable. That’s fair. But while we are taking into account how we perceive other teams, we can’t overlook our own shortcomings. The fact is, MSU is handing over the reigns at quarterback and running back. On the offensive line – one that was mediocre in 2011 – State loses three seniors. There is talent to replace these guys, but there are a lot of unknowns. Defense seems a little more stable, even with the loss of Fletcher Cox and Charles Mitchell.

I haven’t gone through every SEC team yet, I’ll save that for the summer time. But after spring practice, I don’t feel like this is a better team than the 2011 group. And that just means a team that could end up anywhere between 6-6 and 8-4. If we go 6-6 again, or even 7-5, I’m not going to feel like Dan Mullen won’t ever be able to get it done here. 2012 – to me – just doesn’t seem like it has the makings of a great team. But 2013, that is a different story.

The 2013 team should have a senior QB in Tyler Russell, plus Dak Prescott with another year under his belt. All the running backs and the entire offensive line will be coming back. The WRs will lose four seniors, but it shouldn’t dip too much with the likes of Jameon Lewis, Joe Morrow, Ricco Sanders, etc. The D-line will continue to be stout, likely only losing Josh Boyd from a key role. Cam Lawrence will graduate at LB, but there is talent to replace him. Safety should be good with Whitley, Dee Arrington and Jay Hughes. Obviously the biggest concern would be cornerback where Johnthan Banks, Corey Broomfield and Darius Slay would all be leaving. But with Will Redmond and other guys stepping up I don’t feel as uneasy about it as this year’s O-line.

I’m not going to dismiss the 2012 team but I’m not going to hang my hat on them either. The schedule does set up well for a nice start before murderer’s row down the stretch; the ’13 schedule could be even better though. Barring any huge changes, LSU and Alabama will be coming to Starkville. With what I outlined above that is the recipe for making a run at another trip to Atlanta.

I’m not trying to temper expectations or give Mullen an excuse. I just hate for MSU fans to expect 9 or 10 wins just because it’s year four. The bottom line is, Mullen is doing a good job and he’s building the program. We all know that we’re probably not going to compete for championships year in and year out, so it’s the seasons like 2013 that we have to look to with our highest expectations.