Miami Baseball will be a #5 seed in this week’s ACC tourney in Jacksonville. In an effort to spruce up the Canes for the affair, Nike is releasing the black SwooshFlex hat and a black t-shirt which looks like the black baseball jersey show in the pic above. Both the hat and shirt will ship May 25th and we’ll have in stock soon thereafter.
The SwooshFlex hats will retail for $19.99 and the new tee will be available in Small through XXLarge and wil retail for $17.99.
The new gear looks slick – only thing I would change if I had the chance would be the hat. I’ll give Phil Knight a call and see what he can do … ya, right. The Old English text “M” on the hat is my favorite, although obviously the “U” on the front is the most recognizable symbol of the ‘Canes – kinda like the star on the helmet is for the Dallas Cowboys, or the belly is for Ralph Friedgen or the “NY” logo is for the piece of crap Yankees (I’m a die hard Devil Rays fan – felt good earlier this year to watch them sweep the Yankees here in Tampa). I’d give anything to get my hands on a white hat with the green bill and green “M” on the front like the ‘Canes used to have – those were probably my favorite of all. I think to go along with their new black tops, a black hat with an orange “M” outlined in green with an orange bill would look mean.
Onto baseball now. If you look at the 8 teams playing in the ACC tourney, 4 of them are in the top 25 with 3 teams in the top 10 according to the Baseball America poll. In the USA Today/ESPN poll, 5 teams are in the top 25 with 3 teams in the top 10. The Collegiate Baseball poll has 5 teams in the top 25 (Miami #25), 6 teams in the top 27 and 3 teams in the top 5 … and people think the ACC is just a basketball conference or a sub-par football conference?
If you break down the teams in the ACC tourney, Miami pretty much is the youngest and has the least amount of players on their team with 31 – Wake and Clemson are close with 32 a piece. Miami has 5 seniors, 4 juniors (1 redshirt jr), 6 sophs (1 redshirt so) and 9 frosh (4 redshirt frosh). Wake has 4 seniors (2 are redshirt) and 9 juniors (2 are redshirt) … Clemson has 3 seniors and 9 juniors (2 are redshirt) – and Clemson also has 6 kids on their team from Florida, the most of any team in the tourney outside of being a Florida school. Considering juniors and seniors upperclassmen Miami has 10 – compared with Clemson (12), Wake (13), GTech (13), Virginia (14), UNC (14), NC State (15), FSU (15). My point is this – our kids are damn tough and Coach Morris has a strong stable of youth to work with in the coming years. It’s only going to help the kids by getting exposure and experience to being or playing in the conference tourney and quite possibly heading out to Omaha. It’s not like they’re facing candy ass competition in the ACC either, hell, look at the different polls (Baseball America, USA Today/ESPN and Collegiate Baseball) and see where the ACC teams are.
FSU landed 6 of their players on the ACC 1st Team and 1 on the 2nd Team … they had the ACC Player of the Year, ACC Pitcher of the Year and ACC Coach of the Year. UNC landed 3 on the 1st Team and 4 on the 2nd Team. Miami had a frosh on the 1st Team (Eric Erickson) and a soph on the 2nd Team (Yonder Alonso). Look how Miami hung with UNC and FSU this year when they played them. In the first meeting between UNC and Miami, #1 ranked UNC jumped out to a 6-0 lead and then Miami scored 5 unanswered but lost 7-5. Second meeting, #1 ranked UNC won 3-1. Frosh Eric Erickson allowed just 2 runs on 8 hits in 7 innings – you can’t ask for much more than that from the kid. Not to forget also that Miami had the bases loaded in the 8th with only 1 out and didn’t capitalize on the opportunity by scoring a single run before getting 3 outs. You just can’t leave the bases juiced like that and not get a single run. Third meeting, #1 ranked UNC won 11-7. UNC had 7 RBI’s combined from 2 players, one of them had a career best 4 RBI on a grand slam (that kid went 1-4 that day, the one hit happen to be a granny – go figure). Manny Miguelez didn’t exactly have his best day b/c he was ripped for 7 runs on 5 hits (2 were homers) in 3 innings … but Dennis Raben and Jemile Weeks did their part for the ‘Canes. Raben hit 2 dongs and had 4 RBI’s with Weeks going 3-5 with a blast of his own. The ‘Canes jumped out on UNC early, scoring 4 runs in the 1st – it just took a career best day from a UNC player and you’re not going to win when your pitcher gives up 10 hits to the top 5 batters of the opposing team. But hey, UNC was #1 for a reason at the time.
Against FSU, I’m sure all of you remember what happened down at The Light. First game, #1 ranked FSU was trailing until the top of the 9th when they put a 4 spot up to win 7-6 .. two ACC 1st Team players for FSU, one of which is the ACC Player of the Year in Tony Thomas, hit back to back homers in the top of the 9th. Second game, it took another career night from an opposing player for a #1 ranked team to beat the ‘Canes – Buster Posey for FSU went 3-6 with a single, double, grand slam and posted a career best 7 RBI. Third game, Eric Erickson said enough of this sh*t and simply dominated. He only gave up 1 run on 6 hits and didn’t allow a runner past 2nd base through 5 innings. He also didn’t walk a batter. Dennis Raben and Jemile Weeks once again took care of business, Raben went 3-3 with 2 RBI and Weeks went 2-4. Yonder Alonso went 1-2 with 2 runs scored also.
I believe in what Coach Shannon believes in – there are no excuses and I’m not trying to make any but how the ‘Canes lost. I’m sure that Coach Morris has the same type of thinking. No excuses .. I don’t want to hear “I can’t ” .. get the job done. The ‘Canes had some bad breaks and career days by 2 players against them during the 6 games they played against the #1 team(s) in the nation (UNC and then FSU) – but that doesn’t excuse the fact that they didn’t capitalize on opportunities they had to win or their pitching could have been better at times. But from that you also see how tough our young guys are and how they don’t care who you are – they’re going to come at you and bring the fury with them.
p.s. National Championships in baseball: NC State 0, Virginia 0, Clemson 0, Georgia Tech 0 (lost title game 1994), UNC 0 (lost title game 2006), FSU 0 (lost title game 1970, 1986, 1999 to THE U), Wake Forest 1955 National Champs (lost title game 1949) …. THE U 1982, 1985, 1999, 2001 National Champs (lost title game 1974, 1996) – booyah.
– S.Woodward … a ‘Cane in Tampa