Just Because It's Baseball Doesn't Mean We Can't Gamble On It, Ask Pete Rose

Yesterday, the UC Irvine Anteaters scored one for California when they beat Oral Roberts University to advance to the next round in the college world series. Unfortunately, this didn’t seem to make huge headlines around the sporting world. It seems that big media groups are gearing up for the big Celtic – Laker battle that is ensuing later in the week (this one included, though I hardly believe we’re anything close to a “big media group”).

Not that this win is supposed to send shockwaves around the world or anything. It is just the first tier of competition. No champion was crowned, thus no big news. However, I do seem to recall that back during the NCAA Basketball Tournament, every game seemed to be big news. Do you remember Mississippi St beating Oregon in the first round of this year’s tournament? Unless you’re from Mississippi St or Oregon (and if you are, I offer my condolences), then you probably don’t remember any part of it.

Yet, back in March, this was definitely news worthy to many people, some who hadn’t seen an Oregon or Mississippi St game the whole season. It was news worthy enough that Yahoo or ESPN put it on their front page right away after the game was over. Why? Duh, because it was March Madness. But what makes March Madness so special?

Ahhhh yes, the gambling of course! Hell, sometimes the only reason I watch college basketball is to get myself informed about the upcoming tournament. Do I really care about the University of San Diego? Hell no, but they are a bubble team, so I might as well watch this game on ESPN 2 just to see what they’re all about. No doubt the gambling essence and atmosphere March Madness creates increases their viewership not only around March, but also throughout the year.

This begs the question to the College World Series, why hasn’t anyone come up with some kind of gambling scheme for this event? There are 64 teams, just like in the College Basketball Brackets, though the way they do things is slightly different. It’s not a straightforward single elimination; go to the next bracket kind of deal. Perhaps this is what scares gamblers away: unfamiliarity.

That doesn’t mean we can’t have some Vegas like fun though. We just need to get ourselves schooled in the way of the CWS. How does the CWS work? Well according to Wikipedia:

“During team selection, eight teams are given national seeds which guarantee them home-field advantage (provided they continue to win) throughout the tournament until the College World Series. As in other NCAA tournaments, conference champions (usually determined by a tournament) receive automatic bids, and the selection committee fills the remaining spots.

The first tier, called Regionals, consists of 16 locations that include four teams, seeded 1 through 4, competing in a double-elimination bracket. The 16 host sites are determined mostly by merit - most No. 1 seeds host - but are also contested by bids from schools guaranteeing the NCAA a certain amount of revenue from that regional. Host teams traditionally have a large advantage, although the home team for each game is determined by rule, so the host school sometimes plays as the visiting team. The winner of each regional moves on to the second tier, the Super Regionals.

Super Regionals are played at eight locations throughout the country and consist of the 16 surviving teams, matched up by predetermined regional pairings. National seeds cannot meet each other in the super regional and are guaranteed to host. If the national seed in the bracket is eliminated in the regional stage, the super regional will be bid upon by the two competing teams. The two teams play a best-of-three series to determine who moves on to the College World Series. Although one school hosts all three games, the teams split home-field advantage in the first two games and toss a coin to determine home-field advantage in the third game.

The final eight teams meet in Omaha, Nebraska in the College World Series. The CWS mimics the earlier rounds, consisting of two double-elimination brackets of four teams each and a championship series between the two winners. The winner of the College World Series is crowned National Champion.”

There was also a line in that description about Omaha being voted as the “Shittiest Place For a Championship Game” but Wikipedia quickly edited that one out a few minutes later. If that’s not a fact, I don’t know what is.

Now that we understand how the playoffs work, it’s easy to make a gambling scheme. For the first round, all we have to do is pick the winner of each of those 16 regionals. If we’re all in an office pool or something, each person just picks who they think will win those regionals, and get points based on if they’re right or now. After that, it’s just picking who will advance to the next bracket, just like in March Madness. People can then just come up with their own point system. It’s as easy as that!

I’m pretty sure if pools like these sprung up more throughout the country, the CWS would be a huge deal, much bigger than it is now. It’s summer and people have more time and money to spend, so why not blow it on College Sports? It’s a win win situation, unless you lose of course. Hell, it’d be the only way for me to watch any form of baseball because now I have something to lose, and things are only exciting when there’s something on the line. Am I right? Well at least I think things are more fun when gambling is involved. No I don’t have a problem. Seriously I don’t. What’s this, a number for the Gambling Addiction Center? Fuck off. Seriously, there’s no problem. I’m not going to call. What you think I will? Hm…. want to bet on it?

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