Holliday Fired Up for Bedlam, but Start Times Not So Much
STILLWATER – This weekend’s Bedlam baseball series is huge as Oklahoma State 21-8/5-1 transitions from playing Kansas and Kansas State and getting off to a good start in the Big 12 to playing Oklahoma at 17-10/3-3. The Sooners are a solid team and they hope to use Bedlam to jump in among the leaders in the conference.
Zach Lancaster will have more of a full preview of the Bedlam series to be played completely on campus at O’Brate Stadium after years of playing the series across the state including in Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
Oklahoma State leads the Big 12 in defense with just 13 errors in 29 games and they are second in pitching with a 3.84 ERA. Oklahoma counters as the fourth best offensive team so far in the Big 12 hitting .284 as a team with the added facet of 62 stolen bases, second in the conference in that category.
Oklahoma State head coach Josh Holliday is fired up for the series. He feels good about his team and they have momentum coming off a 5-3 win over Wichita State on Tuesday. What Holliday is not fired up about is the start times for the three-game series. Oklahoma State normally starts games at 6 p.m. on Friday, 6 p.m. on Saturday, and 1 p.m. on Sunday. Baseball players are normally like their routine. A national television cable appearance on ESPNU has the Saturday game starting at 8 p.m.
“I wasn’t real fired up about that eight o’clock game because that is a body clock issue for me,” Holliday started. “That’s late, that’s late for anything we do, late for the fans, late for the kids. That’s later than anything we do (starting time). The three o’clock start time Sunday was on me because I wasn’t going to have kids walk out of here at one in the morning and have them come back early and get ready to play at one on Sunday. We’ll give them the two hours back and go at three.”
There is give and take and I can tell you that Holliday likes the national attention. It is good for recruiting and will be great for exposure to O’Brate Stadium. Oklahoma State will showcase under the lights the showplace for college baseball.
“It’s national stuff, national TV, ESPN, ESPN2, or that stuff,” Holliday said. “That’s great we want the games and for the kids to have the attention. I wish it had been at six. Hopefully, our fans will make it one big day of staying around Stillwater and be around with us for the finish.”
The concern is his players and staying to a routine.
“These games are about the players. They put their heart and soul out there in what they do. They put their bodies out there and compete fiercely and all you want to do as a coach is give them the chance for all three days for that to be high level stuff.
My one bit of advice to Coach Holliday is that his players are college student-athletes, emphasis on college. Most college students consider eight p.m. early on a Saturday night and one a.m. is not that late to many, baseball players perhaps exceptions.