Steve Sabins Calls Bullpen Near Clemson’s ‘Drunk Frat Guys’ a ‘Bogus’ Setup

Aside from West Virginia sweeping the Clemson regional a week ago, one of the big storylines coming out of last weekend was the proximity of the fans to the visiting team's bullpen.

Several times, the camera panned to a Mountaineer reliever warming up with a bunch of Clemson fans hounding him as he warmed up, which is completely fair game. The problem is how close the fans were to the pitchers.

Clemson moved its visitors bullpen from a walled-off area to inside the field and right in the heart of its students.

This is how West Virginia’s pitchers have to warm up at the Clemson NCAA Regional.

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“I think they need to fix that deal. The bullpen thing’s bogus at Clemson," WVU head coach Steve Sabins said on Friday ahead of their super regional matchup with LSU. "They’ve got it so close to the bullpen that you’ve got drunk frat guys…you can get so close that as pitchers are warming up, someone could actually grab a pitcher's arm. I’m all for environment, it’s just that somebody could reach out and grab an arm and potentially injure someone. As a pitcher's warming up, psychologically, if you feel like you’re in danger, you may adjust your mechanics, or you may feel like it’s too tight. There probably needs to be a rule in place just to control that a little bit.”

He's 100 percent right. As someone who pitched for many years, I can tell you that being in that tight of an area can completely throw you out of rhythm when getting loose. I don't know that I ever experienced a situation like the one at Clemson, but I've seen some narrow bullpens where you had no choice but to change your release point and be mindful of where your back leg finished. I couldn't imagine also having to worry if some drunk fan would get some stupid idea of trying to do something while you're in motion.

Clemson has to get this fixed.

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