RBR Question of the Day: What to do about Mississippi State and those damn cowbells

I was watching Mississippi State destroy Oklahoma in the Tallahassee Regional today when someone down the bar asked, “where are the cowbells?”

The patron was referring to the twist of SEC rule niche carving that allows Starkville homers to drown out the calls of opposing teams with artificial noisemakers while leaving the rest of the conference to make do with their god-given and god-restricted voices. They do it in football as we all know. Not in baseball regionals, where clearer heads have prevailed. [Ed. Note: A vote during the SEC Spring Meetings last week reaffirmed this Clanga Carveout by implication. Later today, we’ll have a piece on the forthcoming rule changes).

It’s a testament and salute to the stick to it-ivness of the Bulldog fans. Blatantly break the rules on what can and can’t be done in a stadium by a fan base long enough, and eventually some conference front office idiot will fall for your “It’s a tradition!” shtick and grant a “compromise” which per the letter restricts but in practice grants a waiver.

So, fine. That’s where we are. In Starkville visitor’s calls get disrupted in ways not allowed anywhere else. How to remedy things?

I’d like to see a waiver for anyone hosting the Bulldogs. Make clanga at home then face clanga abroad. Let the av club at Bryant-Denny turn up the music through the snap when State has the ball (of course we wouldn’t play Son of a Preacher Man, because that’s just beyond the pale.) Let LSU send the boiling screeches of a million crawfish through the PA system when MSU’s quarterback is calling for motion. Let Auburn blast through the speakers behind their Jacksonville State christened Jumbotron as loudly as possible “The ground is not unusually wet! This is our standard gardening practice and in no way meant to hamper your outside run!” when the Bulldogs attempt an audible.

Starkville represents an unmerited hurdle for the visiting team because the home crowd has been allowed to flaunt rules proscribed to the rest of the conference. How would you remedy the situation?

Call an end to the cowbells, or give it back to them good and hard?