Lucas: UNC Baseball Mailbag
June 13, 2008
By Adam Lucas I'm afraid that our baseball Mailbag readers have been deceived. You seem to have gotten the impression that I'm cooler than I actually am. That's the only possible conclusion I can draw from the fact that a disproportionate number of questions in this week's Mailbag somehow related to music. Luckily, my kids haven't yet gotten into Hannah Montana, so I still have a tiny bit of music knowledge. Let's put it to the test: I have been trying to figure out the title of the song in the 2006 tribute video. I can't find it anywhere. Can you tell me the title and artist? The song for the 2006 tribute video, which can be found on THB.com's baseball page, is Wave on Wave by Pat Green. Just to head off this question, the song for the 2007 tribute video is Better than Ezra's This Time of Year. And the song for 2008? If you've got any good suggestions that you think would be a good fit, let us know. It's last year's graduate assistant athletic trainer and I'm curious if there is a song of choice that the tar heels have taken a liking to for this year's bus rides? Similar to last years Rocky or the Robert Woodard locker room favorite Wagon Wheel? Enjoy your trip, I wish I could be there with you all again. Doug was a key part of last year's run to Omaha and now works with the Penn State football team, where I'm guessing they don't regularly sing Wagon Wheel. For those who don't know, the Rocky songs that were played during infield at games in Cary this year became a tradition in 2007. It made for quite the entrance to Rosenblatt Stadium: imagine riding on a bus with 25 Tar Heels ready to play in the College World Series, listening to Rocky music, and then coming over the hill and seeing Rosenblatt out the bus window.
Those songs remain in the rotation this year, along with a new addition: Cochise by Audioslave. That's also known as the song that's played when Rob Wooten takes the mound. If you still can't quite place it but you've visited the Carolina Basketball Museum, think of the fast-paced song that kicks in when the Tar Heels take the floor in the giant video visitors watch as they enter the museum. That's Cochise. According to manager extraordinaire Tyson Lusk, the Diamond Heels have had to be careful about cranking their pregame locker room music. Since the temporary locker rooms were in the old Kenan field house, offices were located directly above the locker room, and John Blanchard might not have wanted to rock out to the latest stylings of Lil' Wayne while going about his workday. If there's a close competitor to Wagon Wheel this year, it's probably Please Don't Stop the Music. Expect more creative--and louder--music choices when the Diamond Heels move into their new digs at Boshamer Stadium this fall. However, there are no such volume limitations on the bus rides back to Chapel Hill. As usual, the job of postgame team entertainment falls to catcher Mark Fleury. Recently, he has taken responsibility for leading the team in singing God Bless the USA. Yes, every verse. The team follows that song with a rousing chant of, "USA! USA! USA!" By that point, the bus has arrived back in Chapel Hill and the bus driver's ears are bleeding. Will the patriotic salute continue on Omaha bus rides? Only Maestro Fleury knows for sure.
Will any of the games be streaming on the web? I love the radio broadcasts but live in Charlottesville and as you might expect there's not much coverage of Carolina sports on local stations. Bill, are you sure you didn't mean to ask a question about the Carolina baseball rap or which song Mike Fox listens to while writing out the lineup card? The Tar Heel Sports Network broadcast of each and every game from Omaha will be available free right here at TarHeelBlue.com. You can find it through the power of TarHeelBlue.com All-Access, or just scroll down to the bottom of the main THB.com page and click on the "Listen" link in the Schedule & Results section (trust me, it'll be there on Sunday). Our expanded pregame show will begin 15 minutes before the first pitch, which means we'll be with you at 6:45 Eastern for Sunday night's game against LSU. As always, we'll be taking your emails throughout the broadcast and look forward to hearing from you. Here is a question I can't recall hearing an answer to yet this season. What do the initials stand for on Rob Wooten's cap? Hopefully there is a good story behind it he doesn't mind sharing. By now you've probably seen this, but there is indeed a story behind the initials on Wooten's cap. So I was wondering...what's up with the Michael Jackson approach to Carolina baseball? I've noticed that the position players wear a single white glove underneath their fielding gloves. The gloves look similar to batting gloves. I was wondering, what's Nike's newest baseball innovation? I guess they must be effective, because I've seen a variety of the players wearing them; including this past weekend, where I'm surprised that the gloves didn't permanently fuse to their hands as a result of the sweltering heat. For the last two years, Nike has picked a color to emphasize with their college baseball apparel and equipment. In 2007, that color was black, which resulted in a major Tar Heel abomination. The company also produced black bats that were used--with a varying degree of enthusiasm--by several players last year. This season, the color of choice is white. That means white bats, white batting gloves (which is what Jennifer noticed), and even white spikes. As you might have noticed, Nike sent the Tar Heels some custom white spikes with Carolina blue accents that are a vast improvement over last year's black jerseys. The white shoes made the trip to Omaha, and it's a safe bet that you could see them at some point during the College World Series. What's next for Nike? I don't know, but let's hope their color choice for 2009 isn't red. I know that baseball players in the professional leagues use wooden baseball bats and I want to know why wooden baseball bats are not used in college baseball? Because Nike doesn't have enough trees to produce white wooden bats. In all seriousness, Travis, the major factor is cost. Wooden bats break, which means more must be ordered. Metal bats--despite what you might believe from Dustin Ackley, who has broken a couple over the last two seasons--tend to last longer. Metal bats, of course, are also more forgiving for hitters, with a larger sweet spot. Composite bats have made a major push in recent years, and the NCAA deserves credit for curbing some of the aluminum excesses that produced absurd scores in the late 90s. To learn more, take a look at this informative story by A.J. Carr. Of course, numerous Tar Heels will use wooden bats this summer in the various summer leagues. They'll begin to disperse to their summer teams once the College World Series concludes. TarHeelBlue.com will have more information on team assignments when the games end in Omaha. Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of four books on Carolina basketball. |
