I too am happy to see this. It is a few season past due. The reason Wells came back a few years ago was because he saw that Gaspard would not be hired as his replacement. More than likely Bobby Pierce from Troy was going to be named the new coach. Pierce started the baseball program at UAH and has done a phenomenal job at Troy. Pierce is also a former Bama player. Wells immediately rescinded his retirement and who did he hire as an assistant? That’s right. Gaspard. Don’t get me wrong, Gaspard is an excellent coach. He helped turn the offense around when he came back two seasons ago and is one heck of a recruiter. He has head coaching experience at Northwestern State in Louisiana. We’ll see how that translates to the SEC. I think Gaspard is about the best the program could do right now. I still think Pierce would be the best man for the job, but I’m going to throw my support behind Coach Gaspard and hope he does a great job. He will continue to recruit well, and He and Coach Dax Norris(another former Bama player) wfill keep the offense going strong. There are two things I hope for in this change. 1. I hope the team will cut down on the backwards K’s (striking out looking). 2. Hire a good pitching coach.

You should check out Pierce’s bio. He is a heck of a coach.

I just want to make something clear. The reason I said earlier that I felt like Gaspard is the best we could do right now is the obvious lack of support that the baseball program receives from the athletic department. Promise after promise has been made to upgrade the facilities, but little has been done to come through on them. Yes, they did get a new scoreboard, but how does a scoreboard make you a better player/team? What recruit decides to attend your school and play in your program because of a new scoreboard??? The Tide has the worst baseball facilities in the conference. If they want to play with the big boys in the SEC such as LSU, Ole Miss, Arkansas, etc., they are going to have to pony up. When questioned about it last year Mal said that the money just wasn’t there. It looks to me like a lot of renovations and new buildings are being built around campus. Before I get blasted for saying football brings in the money, I know that. I have no beef with the football team adding on to the stadium. They deserve it. But baseball is a revenue generating sport. They deserve a little bigger slice of the pie.
Until improvements are made, Alabama won’t be able to attract a top tier coach to he Capstone. If the commitment to excellence is what they athletic department says it is, they’ll give the baseball program the things it needs to make it back to Omaha and help them get out of mediocrity.

Haha. I was swamped with school work and work. I had mentioned before that I would like to do some baseball stories, but I never had the time. Hopefully I’ll have some more time this season. Baseball is my passion. As Jim Bouton said, “You see, you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball, and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.”