Mark Whicker: Oregon State likely headed to Mountain West conference

Former Okotoks Dawgs OF Micah McDowell (Halifax, NS) of the Oregon State Beavers. Photo: Oregon State Athletics

August 30, 2023

By Mark Whicker

Canadian Baseball Network

There are 159 sunny days a year, on average, in the town of Corvallis, Oregon. That, of course, is a minority.

The average high/low temperatures in March are 58 and 40 (14.4 and 4.4, Celsius). In April it zooms up to 64 and 42 (18 and 5.5). Corvallis gets 51 inches of rain per year, mostly during the time Oregon State University is in session.

Baseball would not seem to be a naturally-occurring commodity at Oregon State, in other words. Until 2005, the Beavers had been to one College World Series, in 1952, and the players were stunned at how hot it was in Omaha, although they were spared further discomfort by losing twice and going home.

So what Oregon State has done since then is one of the great improbabilities in American collegiate sport.

Now the Beavers’ dam (cq) good run has been endangered not by its richer, sunnier Pac-12 rivals, but by the utter incompetence and greed of those who have just now been barred from treating players in all sports like unpaid servants.

Oregon State attended the CWS in 2005, again went home in the minimum two, but returned in 2006 to win the championship. Those who called it a fluke, on the order of Coastal Carolina and Fresno State, were silenced the next year when Pat Casey’s club won it again. (Coastal and Fresno weren’t flukes either.)

For good measure, Oregon State won its third CWS in 2018. Casey retired forthwith. He had won 900 games, good for a .622 winning percentage, and the Beavers went to Omaha six times on his watch and qualified for the NCAA tournament in 12 of his past 14 years.

In doing so, Oregon State had to cross swords with Stanford, UCLA, Arizona State and the rest of a thriving conference. Hall of Famers Jackie Robinson, Barry Bonds, Randy Johnson, Mike Mussina and Tom Seaver, plus Fred Lynn, Jackie Jensen, Tim Lincecum, Mark Prior, Mark McGwire, John Olerud and Chase Utley only make up the preamble of the Pac-12’s honour roll.

Now the Pac-12 seems as doomed as the slide rule. USC and UCLA have fled for the Big Ten. Oregon and Washington awaited word of a new Pac-12 media deal, got none, and joined the Big Ten as well. The Big 12 nailed down its new TV deal and coaxed Colorado, Utah, Arizona State and Arizona to join up.

That left Oregon State, Washington State, Stanford and Cal, a year from now. The latter two are so terrified over the prospect of getting their spikes soiled in the plebeian Mountain West that they’re willing to play in the Atlantic (as in Ocean) Coast Conference, three time zones away, for no TV money, and have reportedly promised to play the Andy Griffith Show on their video boards at halftime.

At that point the Beavers and Cougars would have little choice other than to play in the Mountain West. Only seven Mountain West schools even play baseball, and San Jose State was the only one in 2023 that finished as many as four games over .500. In the Ratings Percentage Index, which ranks college baseball teams based on performance and schedule, San Jose State, San Diego State and Air Force were the only ones ranked in the top 150.

Air Force might have been a little better if it had been able to keep a 6-foot-6 catcher who was beginning to sprout his wings as a pitcher. Paul Skenes led Air Force to a Mountain West title and went 9-2 with a 2.63 ERA. Then he transferred to LSU, where he became the top player picked in the 2023 MLB draft.

As glorious as Oregon State’s history is, there is no doubt that the transfer portal will swing open wider than it ever has in Corvallis. As much as the Beavers can point to their major league footprint, there is no doubt that they will begin losing recruits to the former Pac-12 schools, and to programs from the West Coast Conference and the Big West, in a way they did not before.

There is a certain romance to college baseball that can’t be duplicated in football. Colleges only get 11.7 scholarships. The top schools can’t hoard the top talent, although the Southeastern Conference schools seem to, so a resourceful coach like Casey or the procession of coaches that won four College World Series for Cal State Fullerton can explore the high schools and junior colleges and find projectible talent.

Besides, the very best high schoolers will almost always sign with the major league clubs, no matter what Name, Image and Likeness compensation can muster.

That process will become much harder for Beavers’ coach Mitch Canham, who was on that first championship team (and turned down an interview request on this subject).

Down the road, Nike generalissimo Phil Knight is the bank for Oregon’s ambitious sports programs. Knight watched in alarm as the Beavers began winning. He did a quick abracadabra and suddenly Oregon had a baseball program in 2007, with shiny facilities and celebrated coaches and recruits.

The Ducks have made NCAA tournaments since then but have not visited Omaha or won the Pac-12. If the intent was to derail the Beavers, it failed. Men in suits, not uniforms, were the only ones who could.

Now Oregon will have its own inconveniences in the Big 10 a year from now, but at least has its Southern California partners.

Meanwhile, the Beavers decorate the major leagues. Baltimore catcher Adley Rutschman was the NCAA Player of the Year and should get MVP support in the American League this year. Drew Rasmussen was preparing for a big year on the mound in Tampa Bay when he was injured.

Trevor Larnach is establishing himself as a Twins’ outfielder. Nick Madrigal is a valuable, pesky utility man for the Cubs. Steven Kwan is one of the game’s top contact hitters, in Cleveland. Michael Conforto has had a nice comeback season in San Francisco. Matt Boyd has been a major league pitcher since 2005 and is in his second tour with Detroit, although he had Tommy John surgery this year.

Maybe the most remarkable story is Giants’ outfielder Wade Meckler, who was never big enough or athletic enough to get out of Esperanza High in Anaheim, but somehow got to Oregon State, was advised by Canham that he probably should transfer, refused to listen, and led the Pac-12 in runs and doubles his senior year. He is now with the varsity Giants and does not seem interested in getting demoted.

The Mountain West’s TV payout is $4 million per school. The Pac-12’s, even in its backward state, was $37 million. All these realignment decisions are based on the vision of football super-leagues, in which only one team can win a national championship but up to 50 schools are going to be swimming in so much cash that it won’t really matter.

Sports like volleyball, swimming, track and field and, in some cases, baseball will become increasingly trivial, and probably will become too bothersome to exist.

Those, for the most part, are the sports in which the student-athlete myth really can ring true. They also are the home for young men and women who aren’t looking to spin their sports into a profession. Such students are clear-eyed about the college opportunity that sports has given them. They’re being boosted onto a pathway of a meaningful career, thanks to their ability to clear a hurdle or pound a backhand winner.

It was a shaky model anyway, but now football stands ready to devour it. Maybe the Beavers will fool everyone once again. More likely, one imagines wistful reunions in Corvallis, when players come back to talk about their Omaha steaks, and remember how they regularly walked into Goss Stadium and turned a springtime shiver into a thrill.

Editor’s Note _ Canucks with Oregon State Beavers this spring and next: OF Micah McDowell (Halifax, NS) and LHP Justin Thorsteinson (Langley, BC).

Canucks with Oregon this spring and next: RHP Matthew Grabmann (Dartmouth, NS), RHP Turner Spoljaric (Lisle, Ont.), OF Owen Diodati (Niagara Falls, Ont.) and assistant coach Blake Hawksworth (North Vancouver, BC).