Play Ball!!!!

Friday it was announced that the University of Oregon is reinstating Baseball in 2009 after a twenty six year absence. While I've never been a huge college baseball fan I am excited about this. Oregon was the only school without a program and that's just sad to me. After Football and Basketball it could be argued that Baseball is the number three sport in college athletics (personally I prefer Track and Field but that's because of Oregon's rich track heritage). Adding a baseball program didn't come without some cuts, it was also announced that the U of O would be dropping its wrestling program. While I feel bad for those athletes and coaches, I feel the right decision was made. College wrestling has absolutely no income potential whatsoever. While a Baseball program will probably lose money, the potential to be a revenue producing sport does exist. In a perfect world they'd just have every single sport but with financial concerns and gender equity issues that is not feasible. If the University of Oregon wants to be an elite athletic department then adding baseball was necessary. I commend Athletic Director Pat Kilkenny for having the guts to do what no other Oregon Athletic Director in the last twenty six years would do and that's to say "play ball!!!"