March 2, 2007
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The Miracle of the “Miracle Minute”
It is already referred to as Vanderbilt’s “Miracle Minute.” Sunday afternoon the men’s basketball team was hosting Kentucky in a televised battle for second place in the SEC East while next door our No. 1 baseball team was in a dogfight with Boston College.
At approximately 3:05 p.m. on February 25, third baseman Pedro Alvaraz stepped into the batter’s box with two out and nobody on base. Trailing 6-5, our first defeat of the season was one out away. Not wanting to give the All-American slugger anything good to hit, the Boston College pitcher threw carefully and walked Pedro.
Next was shortstop Ryan Flaherty. Little did the Eagles realize that the sophomore from Maine predicted between innings that he would win the game. With a count of 2-0, Flaherty crushed the next pitch over the right-center fence for a thrilling 7-6 victory.
That news was relayed to Memorial Gymnasium public address announcer Chip Hoback, who delivered the thrilling news to the delighted capacity crowd just before Kentucky in-bounded the ball for the final decisive nine seconds. You know that result: `Dores Win, `Dores, Win!
This was a great minute in Vanderbilt sports history. And I wasn’t even there – stuck in a Midwestern airport for two days due to an ice storm. Despite that, I barely missed a detail thanks to our tremendous web site, www.vucommodores.com.
We had a link to a live webcast of the basketball game, furnished by the Lincoln Financial Network. I saw and heard exactly what anyone watching television in the South saw. Additionally, I was following the baseball and our women’s basketball game at Tennessee on the GameTracker live stats system. I knew in minute detail what was happening, better than some people who were on campus.
Brandon Barca is doing a superior job as our on-line editor. Most e-readers see the vast improvement since he took over. Free video, interviews, and exclusive content – did you see the outstanding promotion piece on Derrick Byars (Click Here)? Out of town no longer means out of touch. I now know that personally.
Post-Season Basketball Tournaments
We are working through plans on how we will allocate the tickets we receive from the NCAA for the Women’s and Men’s Basketball Tournaments. At this point, the best advice I can suggest is to be paying close attention to our web site on Selection Sunday. We will have complete information posted just as soon as we know all the details. We will also alert the news media, of course, but typically the papers are not in a position to run everything we get to them.
The women’s tournament usually does not have a shortage of first and second round tickets but the men’s event provides a very limited number for each school. Depending upon the location, that is not a lot of tickets to be spread over students, faculty/staff, National Commodore Club members and season ticket holders.
That said, I am a bit surprised that we have not had more takers for the SEC Men’s Tournament in nearby Atlanta, especially with the strong showing of our team this winter. (Click Here for SEC Tickets)
Vandyville – Baseball Style
The popular Vandyville tailgating concept is coming to Commodore baseball for each of the five Southeastern Conference Saturday games. Here are the quick facts:
Five (5) SEC Saturdays plus any post-season, open 3 hrs prior
Includes tents, grills and coolers
Cost: $100 per game or $400 for the season
Available for NCC members, Season ticket holders, and Bullpen Club members only.
To reserve your tent, email Eric Nichols at eric.w.nichols@vanderbilt.edu. Let’s get this tailgating notion rolling now!
When Sold Out Doesn’t Mean Full
We’re all excited about the terrific start to our baseball season. Tim Corbin’s bunch is ranked No. 1 for the first time in school history. The future looks fun; we really do have several of college baseball’s brightest stars on our roster.
This black and gold hub-bub hasn’t been lost on our fans, which have turned out strong despite some cool weather already. Our webcast against Rice had 715 computers watching via vucommodores.com. It wasn’t long ago we didn’t have half that number attending the games!
It was easy to realize that picturesque Hawkins Field, with its capacity of just over 2,000, wouldn’t take long to fill up. Season tickets are long gone. Every day more fans call our ticket office, only to be told they waited too long.
But, as Lee Corso says, not so fast my friend! Yes, we are sold out but also yes, you can still watch a majority of our home games. How’s that?
There are 56 games in a college baseball season with the majority of those are at home. Unless a fan is truly a fanatic, there are games where a season ticket holder can’t attend. During the great SEC pennant race, teams play three-game home stands and some will come, for example, on Friday night but not be able to see the next two.
Therefore, the sport has a “no-show” issue and we are striving to figure out the best way to handle it here. We tried writing ticket holders and asking them to call or just send us tickets they knew they would not use. Understandably, that met with little result.
We will be selling “general admission” tickets prior to many of the games. These tickets will allow fans to occupy seats that are likely sold but going unused for the given game. This is a tricky dance step as we will have to use our best judgment game day as to how many to sell. The bigger the game, the fewer general admission will be available and yes, it is possible there will be no seats of any type to purchase. We hope we are telling VISITING FANS that but we can’t be picking and choosing at the ticket window. It must be first-come, first-served so take warning that the days of strolling up at 1:58 p.m. for a 2 o’clock first pitch are likely over for big games.
So, there are a couple of things you should do if you are on the outside of “The Hawk” looking in right now.
First, call the ticket office at 615-322-GOLD or visit our official web site at vucommodores.com and check into the “On Deck Circle”. This is a waiting list of sorts that will be emailed weekly ticket updates, plus gain some priority toward tickets if we host an NCAA Regional Tournament. We already have well over 100 people on this list. Add your name by going to the baseball front page on our web site and clicking on the On Deck Circle icon.(Click Here for More Info)
We want “The Hawk” to become a fantastic environment for baseball fans to enjoy the game and also one that offers the `Dores a big-time home advantage. The road is hard in this brutally competitive league so we want our guys to feel home field enthusiasm. It wouldn’t hurt any feelings if we crowded out visiting fans; there is nothing in stone that says guests need to occupy a large chunk of our seats. Can you visualize a completely black and gold stadium?
Times have changed. Just as our team is no longer a soft touch, tickets can no longer be taken for granted either! As Roy Kramer, our former Athletic Director used to say, “these are first class problems to have.”
