LISTEN: I’m not thrilled about the timing of this blog either, considering Northwestern men’s basketball just won its 2nd NCAA Tournament game ever and might soon win another(?). I have no intentions of being That Guy and saying “yeah?! But what about the baseball team?”
It is baseball season and this is a baseball blog, that’s it. Sorry!
Suppose you are a desert traveler doing some wandering when you see a thick plume of black smoke piercing the clear, bright midday sky.
You soon find yourself witness to the flaming wreckage of an alien spaceship lying next to a pristine pool of fresh water. Obviously you need water, but a problem arises. Nobody will believe you saw this once you reach civilization, you probably won’t be able to find it anyway, and the ship is in no condition to examine or grab a souvenir from, as it is engulfed in flames.
Surely the smoke will eventually prompt local investigation, and you want to make sure you’re part of wherever this story is going. So you stay. The smoke is downwind, and there’s somehow a wild tomato patch nearby. You’re set.
Nobody comes for several days. The fire burns constantly. You start to grow frustrated – how has nobody within hundreds of miles noticed this huge fire by now?
You are minutes away from packing up and moving on when a camera flashes overhead and a panicked voice from a helicopter’s megaphone asks, “what the hell is going on down there?!”
This is what’s going on down here: the Northwestern Wildcats are 0-12 on the tragically young 2023 college baseball season. It’s not going well. It just took a weeknight ESPN+ broadcast for anyone to notice the smoke.
Having watched the 2011-13 Houston Astros on a nearly nightly basis, I passed the 10,000 hour threshold of critical exposure to bad baseball a long time ago. That is to say, I know it when I see it.
NU is losing baseball games in all of the unique ways that bad teams lose games. These contests are either not close from the start, close for a few innings and then suddenly not close at all, and on rare occasions, are heartbreakingly close, but yet so far.
The law of averages, statistically unsound as it is, says that some of these close losses should coinflip their way into wins …eventually. But one of the beauties of baseball is that luck is oftentimes earned. A team that executes well and has the right vibes will create its own luck; so it is written. This team is not doing any of that.
Here’s the thing – in a vacuum, I don’t really care about the record. This team lost so much (but crucially, not all!) of its established talent to the ACC and SEC, was openly starting from square 1 and gave itself an impossibly hard schedule. In a vacuum, I would have begrudgingly accepted 0-12, given there were other signs of life.
But boy oh boy, this is not happening in a vacuum.
I have no legitimate insights on this, but I do have a general hypothesis. Napoleon and Beacom were holdovers from previous regimes. Strauss was only brought in this past offseason with Foster. Their clearly coordinated departures hints to a major schism between Foster and his staff. It is very troubling and, mostly, unfair to all of the players.
The program, for its part, has yet to acknowledge the situation, but has changed the names on the online staff roster with the discretion of a Bermudian bank. We’ll probably never know for sure what happened, and that’s the way it is.
The news broke on the morning of Monday, Feb. 27. It took about a week for any sort of public outcry to bubble to the surface.
On Tuesday, March 7, the ‘Cats fell 10-6 at UIC, a reasonable score on its own were it not for the 8 fielding errors Northwestern committed.
Watching Northwestern play that night, in person for the first time this season, I saw a group of ballplayers giving strong physical efforts, but unable to avoid preventable mental mistakes in all phases of the game – baserunning, fly balls, situational hitting, pitching, you name it. Unfortunately, these mistakes were broadcasted for (in a purely theoretical sense) the world to see on ESPN+.
The ‘Cats found themselves in the wrong kind of spotlight, on a national telecast for just the second time this season in conjunction with their coaching staff’s mass exodus. @NUCatsBaseball has now developed something of a cult following of folks who are, for lack of a better term, enjoying the show. It’s getting ugly in those mentions.
So, what now?
When the ‘Cats suffered a tough 3-game sweep against Louisiana Tech in Ruston, La., during the first weekend of March, Foster ostensibly realized he could not do this alone (no offense to his volunteer assistant).
Just before the UIC game, he brought in Dennis Cook, a former MLB left-handed relief pitcher who won a World Series with the Florida Marlins in 1997, to serve as an “assistant coach” – not, mind you, as the pitching coach.
Side note, Cook had a fascinating 15-year, 665-appearance MLB career. He was nails in the playoffs, pitching in 16.1 innings across 9 series between 1996 and 2000 and never once allowing a run. He also somehow acquired a side hustle as a pinch hitter and became pretty good at it! Shohei Ohtani has nothing on this man.
I actually really like this hire solely because it’s interesting and sort of out-of-the-box. Though he hasn’t had a coaching position outside of the Cape Cod League in a little while, Dennis Cook is unquestionably qualified for this job.
Cook’s qualifications are beside the point, though: it’s far too early into Jim Foster’s tenure as coach to make sweeping judgments, but it’s been long enough that one might hope for some program-wide public accountability and self-reflection.
That may be asking for too much, but let’s face it: Northwestern baseball’s latest rebuild attempt started on the wrong path. Now it has changed course, just a quarter of the way through season #1.
Whether this new path leads somewhere pleasant remains to be seen. One can only hope.
As of now, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
The Other Guys
Eastern Illinois Panthers (10-4)
Over the last two weekends, the Panths went 6-2 against Dayton, Arkansas State and Arkansas-Pine Bluff. Look, it’s not the AL East, but winning is winning! It’s a shame this weekend’s series against Illinois State was chopped down for weather, but as I type this on March 17, the wind chill outside is 5 degrees. Probably the right call.
Next 6 games vs. flotsam state, jetsam tech
Illinois State Redbirds (6-8)
Not a great stretch for the Birds, including a 12-0 stinker at Nebraska. Conference play can’t come soon enough.
2 at home against Minnesota, 3 on the road against Ohio Valley foe Belmont
Milwaukee Panthers (7-9)
These guys are hitting that early season hitting slump in the absolute worst way. 2-7 in their last 9 games, they haven’t cracked 4 runs in over 2 weeks.
One more against Northern Kentucky followed by a home weekend set against the Youngstown State Penguins.
Northern Illinois Huskies (3-15)
I mean, at least they won some damn baseball games. Must be nice!
Upcoming games redacted
UIC Flames (6-6)
Kind of a weird start for the Flames but that’s what happens when you schedule Alabama on the road.
A neutral site weekend against SIU-Edwardsville (bizarre), followed by a road weekend tilt at Southern Illinois to start Missouri Valley Conference play.
Valparaiso Beacons (7-6)
On its face a middling record, but the Beacs gave #22 Southern Miss a fight on the road last weekend, taking the first game 6-1 and competing valiantly in games 2 and 3. Watch this space!