Lack Of Scholarships Hurts College Baseball

While watching the College World Series a couple days ago, I heard an interesting conversation take place between the broadcasters. They were discussing the number of baseball scholarships each team gets. The number is 11.7. Twenty-five players, twelve scholarships. The numbers don't quite add up.

First and foremost, this issue is an annoyance. If baseball had a proportionately equal number of scholarships to football or basketball, I might have been able to find somewhere to give me a full ride rather than the 50% I received. My student loan payments wouldn't even exist. Financially, I guess I chose the wrong sport.

The fact that baseball gets only 12 scholarships is unfair. Let's look at the numbers. Baseball, with 9 players on the field at one time (ten if you count a DH,) gets fewer than 12 scholarships. Football, the king of college sports, gets 85. They have 11 players on the field at one time. I'll even give football programs the benefit of the doubt and count offense, defense and special teams separately. Still, that's 33 players getting 85 scholarships. Football teams have third and fourth stringers getting full-rides while the biggest stars on a baseball team are paying tuition. There are some arguments in football's favor, the most common one being that they bring in the most money so they deserve the most scholarships. This makes me long for the days when colleges were run like colleges rather than businesses. I don't often agree with financial-based arguments when they apply to college athletics.

Football aside, baseball still gets the short end of the stick. Look at the scholarship numbers for each of the following sports that receive more sholarships than baseball:
Men's basketball: 13
Women's basketball: 15
Women's gymnastics: 12
Women's crew: 20

Title IX has obviously made its mark, in positive and negative ways.

Another argument the broadcasters made was that the lack of baseball scholarships filters out those with a lower socio-economic status. Harold Reynolds focused on minority players, saying there are fewer and fewer of them because they can't afford to pay tuition and full scholarships aren't available. Minorities or not, those who can't afford college on their own are hurt by the shared-scholarship system baseball programs are forced to implement.

If an athlete doesn't have money to pay for college and is offered a half scholarship, how is he supposed to come up with the other half? He can't play ball and work. There's not enough time in a day for that. He could rack up student loans or, if he's good enough, turn pro. More and more players are skipping college in favor of the professional ranks as a way to make money rather than rack up debt.

You can't blame them. If college baseball wants to be profitable, which it has proven it can be, it has to be allotted more than 11.7 scholarships.