If you’ve been watching the NCAA Baseball Tournament during the past week, you’ve noticed quite amazing atmospheres from Starkville to Fayetteville and many other places in the SEC.
It made me jealous. Not because these SEC teams were winning, in fact the complete opposite. I’m rooting for them. Yet what made me jealous was the fact that these baseball stadiums — Dudy Noble, Baum-Walker, Lindsey Nelson — are much better than Auburn has ever had and, possibly, ever imagined of having.
Let that sink in.
The scenes have been phenomenal. The crowd? Noisy as possible. Heck, Mississippi State set a Super Regional record with 14,385 fans on Saturday.
And what do we have at Auburn? It’s rarely filled to the 4,096 capacity that Plainsman Park holds. We have the three or four guys in that one section along the third-base line that continue yelling things that are as funny as the latest Adam Sandler movie. Oh, and that parking deck. Yes, we have the parking deck full of people drinking but too far away — and disinterested in the game — to make any impact on the home-field advantage.
Heck, we don’t even have outfield seating. I’ve seen some people on Twitter mention putting seats on top of the left-field wall and, yes, that would be a great start but when you see 4,000 people (again, more than we average at a game) in the outfield at an Ole Miss game throwing beer in the air after a home run, the Plainsman Park atmosphere looks like a Jefferson-Pilot noon game at Vanderbilt.
It’s not like the Tigers haven’t won. Taking this year out of the equation, the Butch Thompson era has brought back some glory to the program with a trip to the Super Regionals in 2018 and to Omaha for the College World Series in 2019.
We’ve seen the Auburn fan base turn Jane B. Moore Field into a true home-field advantage. Auburn Arena has become one of the most intimidating environments in college basketball.
So what is lacking for Auburn baseball? Why have SEC stadiums at Ole Miss, Mississippi State and elsewhere become so much wild while Plainsman Park resembles a 9 a.m. World History lecture in Haley Center?
I don’t have all the answers but I can suggest some.
Build a section beyond the right-field wall that allows students to bring coolers with their beverages of choice where they can also see the game. It worked to a degree with K Corner but … well … students tend to be more rowdy than alumni in their 50’s.
Make the game more of an experience than it is right now. Besides baseball, what is the really attraction of going to Plainsman Park right now? It’s not for a great atmosphere that you witness across the street at Jordan-Hare Stadium or Auburn Arena.
Of course, this might also just come down to fan indifference. Are Auburn fans truly bought into baseball? Do they even care if the Tigers succeed or not? It’s been some time since the program put out a successful winner consistently but the same can be true for many other sports that are better supported on campus.
Granted, it is hard to compare a regular season series to a Super Regional but, when it comes to attendance, the stadiums are full to almost full in other places where the Tigers are lucky to play in front of 2,000.
Yes, watching the NCAA Regionals and Super Regionals have made me extremely jealous of the environments that other SEC teams enjoy and use to their advantage. There’s no reason Auburn can’t make Plainsman Park an atmosphere to fear.