remarkable stuff

The richest college baseball state in the country, extrapolating from a recent ranking done by Baseball America, is California. The Golden State had five colleges ranked among the top 24 in the magazine’s quantitative analysis of the best programs since 1999. Both Ole Miss (at No. 21) and Mississippi State ranked among the best 27. That’s rather remarkable when you think about it. Only two other states besides California had more schools in the top 27: Texas and Florida, with three each. Most colleges draw most of their players from their home state, and all three of those states are much more heavily populated than Mississippi. Georgia had only one program appear in the top 27, as did Louisiana, Tennessee and Arkansas. Alabama had none. BA’s ranking takes into account a variety of elements, including winning percentage, All-America picks, MLB draft selections and NCAA regional appearances. Ole Miss has made 13 appearances since 1999, when the tournament went to 64 teams. State has made 12 trips. Each has made a deep run in the College World Series in the past two years. Both are projected by BA to make the NCAA field again this year; in fact, fans of both schools have come to expect regional appearances, even regional host roles. That, too, is remarkable when you think about it. … It’ll be interesting to see how this year’s livelier ball impacts the ERA of Ole Miss’ Christian Trent (2.05 in 2014) and State’s Ross Mitchell (2.53) and the home run total of the Rebels’ Sikes Orvis (14 in 2014) and the Bulldogs’ Wes Rea (five). Those could be telling numbers for those key players. P.S. NCAA Division III preseason All-America Keith Shumaker went 1-for-3 with a run as Millsaps opened its season with an 8-0 win over Ozarks (Ark.) on Friday. But Lee Ogletree, a sophomore transfer from Raymond via Hinds Community College, stole the thunder by going 2-for-3 with two RBIs and a run in his Majors debut.