1929 AIAA COLLEGE BASEBALL UPDATE
JUNE 3, 1929
COLLEGE WORLD SERIES FIELD SET
There is still the matter of a division title to settle but the 8 schools that will advance to the AIAA College World Championship Series have been decided. While both Commonwealth Catholic and Liberty College are in, the two schools will need to play a playoff tiebreaker today in order to determine their division champion. The loser of the tie-breaker game will get one of the two wildcard spots in the Northeast Conference.
The Knights forced the tie in the NE Division by winning three of their last four including a pair at Liberty College, while the Bells dropped 3 in a row but recovered with a win yesterday to force the tiebreaker as both teams finish the regular season at 31-19.
The other big story at Commonwealth Catholic also gets an extra day to be written. Outfielder Vic Crawford, who already has set a single season and career rbi mark with his 85 runs driven in this year, will get one more chance to tie or perhaps break the AIAA single season and career homerun marks as the tie-breaker counts as a regular season game. Right now Crawford has 31 homers this season and 67 for his three year career. Both of those totals are 1 shy of the marks established by Calvin Dybas (1912-15).
The other two playoff participants on the Northeast side will come from the Academia Alliance as the George Fox Reds won the division with a 31-19 record, one game better than the Henry Hudson Explorers, who will claim the second wildcard.
In the Continental Conference the three division winners are the Chicago Poly Panthers, Opelika State Wildcats and Rainier College Majestics. Defending AIAA champion Lubbock State rounds out the field as the Hawks claim the wildcard with 34 victories, more than any other team except their division leading Majestics.
The other big individual pursuit we had been following was Freddie Jones' flirtation with a .500 batting average. The Central Ohio freshman was hitting over .500 for almost the entire month of May before finishing the season going 5-for-23 to drop below .500. Jones finished with a .486 average, which is still the second highest single season total ever recorded. The first was a .531 campaign by Elmer Lambert in 1915. Lambert, from George Fox, would go on to play several seasons with the Philadelphia Keystones and is still in the Keystones system.
Finally, this past weekend marks the end of Tom Barrell's college career. The senior will surely enter the draft this season but there is question whether or not he has lost the stranglehold he seemed to have entering the season on being the number one pick. Barrell did help Georgia Baptist to a pair of playoff appearances but the school is still looking for it's first National title. Barrell can't be faulted for that, as he leaves the college game having won more games (34) and pitched more innings than any other college player. Barrell also hit .263 with 26 homers and was a two-way player this season (.335,11,50) leading the Gators in pitching wins and strikeouts as well as finishing second on the team in batting average and first in homers and rbi's. Could his future in FABL be as a hitter instead of a pitcher? Only time will tell but for now the focus turns from Barrell and towards the AIAA College World Series.