College baseball

It is Dylan Campione and we've got a great episode on tap today.

We're going to take a break from Major League Baseball and dive back into my favorite college baseball.

And we've got a very special guest hopping on the show with us.

If you want to introduce yourself to our audience.

And we're excited to dive into it.

That's a spot that I know near and dear, having done that role for Georgetown for a couple of years.

And we're excited to shine the spotlight in what operations in the college baseball is on today's episode.

But do you want to start off by basically telling our audience your baseball journey, how you first started getting involved at UC and obviously, you know, where you are today?

We're not the ones that are having to actually go out there and coach those games and put together those rosters.

But just we're speaking as college baseball nerds because that's what we are.

It's fun to see the volatility.

Yeah.

I didn't know what was out there and what was realistic.

You know, and growing up, we didn't think about college baseball.

I didn't hardly even know college baseball was a thing growing up.

And so I would get all these letters, LSU, Bama, like, you know, all the big schools in the Southeastern Conference.

I looked at Miami.

So I was like, okay, I can go to a big university and play right away.

The second reason was my mom graduated from the University of Florida, so... just kind of all lined up and i was like this is where we're gonna go

yeah and that's an interesting point about your thought wasn't on baseball like college baseball kind of not being a thing because i think historically the thought is like if you're exceptional at baseball you go to the major league right out of high school and if you are not at that level then you go and play college baseball and then maybe you become you know an insurance salesman or something after the fact but now it seems like there's been a transition to where Athletes are utilizing the college process, especially with NIL coming in, to basically hone their skills and develop and mature and then take that next opportunity to the major leagues if that does come calling after the fact.

Okay, runes.

Talk to me about the fact that There is nobody that has championed college baseball reimagining its tournament more than you.

Nobody.

You're the captain of that campaign.

I have a two-part question for you, Berkey.

One is...

Is in fact your biggest argument against 32 hosts that it would extend the season by a week? And then part two of this is, what if I told you in five years that the college baseball season is actually going to start on March 12th?

And that's just a hypothetical that you have no data to say it

But I was able to see a couple other ones through the Florida State League, and it's, it's, it's not even close.

close.So when you pitched there in 2022, and you pitched for a bit that year, and the field of competition, what was that like? You're transitioning for yourself from being a, a college baseball player to the pros, and what was that like, and what was, what was the challenges that you faced when you played, uh, in A ball?

Yeah.

So I mean, I think the biggest challenge was with my fastball being my best pitch, I used my fastball a lot in college 'cause just it worked really well.

I don't blame him, Ben does, he's Mr.

College Baseball, so he goes away for like a month.

So, and I end up doing a lot of games in like 19 out of 23 games or something like that.

So you do, and you're only doing 54.

Um, but what happens is, you know, Ben likes, you know, I don't blame him, Ben does, he's Mr.

College Baseball, so he goes away for like a month.

So, and I end up doing a lot of games in, like 19 out of 23 games or something like that.

So you do, and you're only doing 54.

I'm doing good.

Ready to draft the best conference, um, in College Baseball.

So it's gonna be fun.

[laughs]

He might be tight.

[laughs]

After that we're right into actual college baseball stuff.

Mark is trying to get pre- he's getting ahead of the draft so he can prepare for all the other stuff.

So would you say, I mean, your dad goes without saying, but who else do you remember being a really profound influence on your life as you were moving into high school and then maybe emerging into college? Like who was shaping the way you saw life? Yeah.

I had a college baseball coach that I got to know.

And you played? I played at UCF initially.

So I went to UCF at high school.

Yeah.

I mean, it was pretty common back then.

Um, Where, because on a college baseball roster, there's only, you know, there's less than 12 scholarships to be divvied up between the guys, right? So a lot of times they're, hey, this guy's on this scholarship.

This guy's on this scholarship.