The Braves in Jackson has me thinking

[HereComesTheSpiral]

With the Braves playing their minor league all stars in Jackson this past weekend, would there be any way for us to do a weekend exhibition with the top JUCO players in MS. I know it would be very embarrassing to lose one of these games, but we might find some players we would have possibly not looked at.

[Todd4State]

Well, according to my Dad we actually used to do that in the 70's in the fall and we actually did lose a few of those games.

The problem is the NCAA. They do not allow college teams to play exhibition games with other college baseball teams. And games like Army/Yankees this past weekend- I'm not sure if that counted against Army's allotment of games that they can play.

A lot of people, including me, want to see us play Delta State in an exhibition game, or even a regular season game. We could cut out a SWAC team and play one game in Starkville and I doubt it would hurt our RPI that much- if my understanding is correct a game against a D-2 school wouldn't count one way or the other win or lose. The downside is I think we would be the only SEC team to play a D-2 school and that would probably be used against us along with the other litany of excuses by national media as far as hosting and rankings.

I think the NCAA should allow a one weekend 3-4 game exhibition series before the season starts. Why they don't is beyond me because allow basketball to do it with no problem.

As far as the JUCO baseball goes- we have a jamboree type tournament at Dudy-Noble Field before the season starts. I know Itawamba and Jones were at it this year, and I think East Central was there. It would be extremely unusual for our staff to find a player from a Mississippi JUCO though because they pretty well have the state scouted out. If we're trying to find players, I would rather bring in JUCO's from California, Texas, or Florida and maybe have them play some Missisisppi JUCO's or something.

[msstate7]

How about an exhibition game with the Mississippi braves at trustmark?

[Coach34]

How about an exhibition game with the Mississippi braves at trustmark?

We played the Jackson Mets back in the early 80's- beat them if I remember correctly- and that ended that

[Todd4State]

We beat the Jackson Mets several times. I'm not sure why they stopped playing us though to be honest? I think it's pretty unusual for a minor league team to play a college team in an exhibition game, and I suspect the only reason we did that was because of Con Maloney and his connection to both the Mets and MSU.

[Todd4State]

How about an exhibition game with the Mississippi braves at trustmark?

I would like to see a non-conference game in addition to the Ole Miss and USM games. I actually enjoyed watching us play South Alabama, La Tech, Samford, etc. midweek in Jackson.

[msstate7]

So when we did play the Jackson mets we got to use aluminum bats?

[Todd4State]

Yes, we got to use aluminum. But they had Gregg Jeffries who was a badass minor league player.

[msstate7]

I remember Greg Jeffries. He was supposed to be great, but didnt pan out. Back to the bats... The aluminum bats back then would've been huge advantage, but not so much now.

[Todd4State]

We had some other advantages- like our guys had been playing together for 2-4 years and we had been playing competitively for over 20 games. It's not too surprising that we beat them when you think about it.

[Will James]

You see The U vs Marlins and Boston College vs Boston every year it seems. You know Trustmark would be packed for that, and if we could somehow manage to play the big club well, Katie bar the door.