Have Razorback Baseball Fans Become too Spoiled?
Old wounds are hard to heal.
Ever since that pop-up fell to the ground that would have given Arkansas the national championship over Oregon State in the College World Series a few years ago, Razorback fans have become spoiled pessimists.
Arkansas has been permanently entrenched in the Top 10 of college baseball for years now, spending most of that time hovering near or at the top of the Top 5.
Facilities are the best, the team on the field was the best, and up until this year, the atmosphere was the best.
Arkansas Communications
Arkansas lost its first SEC series in almost exactly three years against Florida a couple of weeks – a series where the Hogs had a dramatic rally with a chance to secure another series win late.
It wouldn't have been surprising had the Arkansas State Police to have been called out to deal with all the road kill on I-49 from so many fans jumping off the bandwagon.
It was a single series, yet fans reacted like it's the end of the world because it's been so long since something like that happened.
If Arkansas couldn't win the world series last year after dominating the entire SEC, including sweeping eventual national champion Mississippi State, then how could they possibly hope to win if they had a hiccup against Florida, fans seemed to reason.
The Hogs have since bounced back with a sweep of then No. 15 LSU and bludgeonings of Arkansas-Pine Bluff and Arkansas State.
However, the lack of morale doesn't come from the end of an SEC series streak. That was just a tipping point.
The things that have changed the air around Baum-Walker Stadium aren't necessarily in the control of the players.
The first, and perhaps most damaging change to the atmosphere at games has to do with the university getting greedy and demanding fans pony up $10,000 for the right to purchase prime seat tickets.
It's a scene I have watched play out before. Jerry Jones decided to require highly expensive seat licenses for the right to purchase premium seats for Dallas Cowboys.
The loss of home field advantage was almost immediate. Despite the fact that Dallas has more millionaires living on a single block than Arkansas has in the whole state, it was hard to fill the expensive seats.
Arkansas Communications
When seats were purchased, they weren't filled every game, and when they were filled, it was usually with someone who was there to be seen as opposed to a hardcore fan.
Many times, those seats were sold off and purchased by a diehard for the other team seeking a destination trip in AT&T Stadium.
LSU was a big series. The place should have been packed and rowdy.
However, on TV, fans from home watched as premium seats went unfilled behind home plate where the impact of the diehard fan has the most potential effect.
A few bodies trickled in much later in the game, but it's hard to tell if people with enough money to pay the up front cost just showed up fashionably late, or if people who had other seats wandered into the section willing to risk getting escorted away by ushers.
Arkansas Communications
The second thing that has had a dramatic impact has been weather. This has been a wet spring with heavy winds.
As was evident against LSU, the winds killed multiple home runs by knocking them down short. The air has also held a lot of moisture, when means more power is needed to push through its heaviness.
As things warm up and dry out, these factors will have less impact. If Arkansas keeps swinging like they have been of late, those long balls that were a signature of last year's team will come back.
Arkansas heads to Texas A&M this weekend. Winds will be blowing hard out of the Southeast at roughly 20 mph most of the series, which means extra power going out of Blue Bell Park.
It should be a good hitting series for the Hogs, while fans will need to be patient with the Razorback pitchers. Small mistakes can turn into big ones in a setting such as this.
Arkansas still has home series against Ole Miss and Vanderbilt, along a trip to No. 19 Auburn and Alabama. If the Hogs drop one of those series, it won't be the end of the world.
Arkansas Communications
They will still host in the postseason and still be favored just like years past. If anything, perhaps the pressure will be off a little bit.
So before anymore baseball fans go jumping off the wagon should the Razorbacks go 1-2 in another tough series, just chill out.
Once you get yourself together, just snatch up that $10,000 you've had in your bedside table in case you need to make a late night run to Taco Bell, and instead use it to get the right to buy some premium seating, and do what you can to get this team over the hump and perhaps finally across that College World Series finish line.
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