The Minnesota Vikings are currently in negotiations to build a new stadium to replace the aging Metrodome. Currently, during the winter months the Metrodome serves as the home of the University of Minnesota baseball program and many other smaller college and high schools. The Gophers consistenly play one of the best home baseball schedules in the Northeast since they are able to play indoors and will host the Texas Longhorns this spring. This could potentially change the way the Gophers schedule in the next couple of seasons if the proposal comes true.
The new stadium calls for the football sidelines bleachers to be within 40 feet of the football sidelines which would cause the right field corner of a baseball configuration to have a wall only 285 feet from home plate and a power alley of 319 feet. Not many college baseball programs are going to travel to Minnesota to play in such a bandbox configuration. You can check out the full article from The Star Tribune by clicking here which includes a graphic of the proposed new configuration.
What do you think of the proposal?
7 comments
typo: gophers play best sched in “northeast” ?
Nice catch
Brian Foley
Editor of College Baseball Daily
When is the Big 10 commissioner going to make good on his threat to take the league out of NCAA national competition to form their own summer schedule?
THAT will be a great day for college baseball! Their whole league is a joke, not just Minnesota. What serious league travels 1500 miles to Florida for the purpose of playing the other cold-weather league (the Big East, whoever is in it this week)?
Irrelevancy is like pregnancy; one of the irrelevant teams cannot become less irrelevant.
This is more focusing on D-2, D-3, and NAIA schools which might end up having to drop their programs if they have to travel in the early part of their schedules.
Agreed, it’s scary. To pick an example of a possible solution out, though, D-3 Northeast schools Williams and Middlebury play a three-game conference series in Arizona each year, in order to avoid weather problems. If enough spring breaks match up, perhaps the NSIC and others might be able to save games this way?
Brian,
If the focus is on the D-2, D-3 programs, why is D-1 U. Minnesota the only program mentioned in the article?
I guess you missed this sentence…
“Currently, during the winter months the Metrodome serves as the home of the University of Minnesota baseball program and many other smaller college and high schools.”
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